THE  GIFFORD  LECTURES  FOR 

19O3-19O4 

THE  PATH  WAY  TO  REALITY 

R.B.HALDANE 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

MRS .MATTER  H.MERRILL 


THE  PATHWAY  TO  REALITY 


THE    PATHWAY 
TO     REALITY 

STAGE   THE   SECOND 

BEING  THE  GIFFORD  LECTURES 
DELIVERED  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  ST  ANDREWS  IN  THE  SESSION 

1903-1904 


BY  THE  RIGHT  HONOURABLE 

RICHARD   BUKDON   HALDANE 

M.P.,  LL.D.,  K.C. 


NEW    YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  AND  COMPANY 

1904 


Printea  in  Great  Britain. 


BD 
H 


PREFACE 

THE  lectures  which  this  volume  contains  were 
delivered  consecutively,  the  first  six  in  October 
1903,  and  the  last  four  in  the  following  January. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  earlier  series,  published  last 
year,  they  were,  for  the  most  part,  not  written.  It 
had  been  suggested  to  me  from  the  first  that  the 
plan  of  talking  instead  of  reading,  with  the  aid  of  a 
note  just  sufficient  to  fix  the  general  sequence,  was 
likely  to  prove  less  burdensome  to  the  audience 
than  an  endeavour  to  rivet  their  attention  to  written 
and  therefore  rigid  discourses  on  topics  which  were 
largely  technical.  The  proposal  suited  my  own  cir- 
cumstances, and,  at  least  in  the  case  of  a  layman, 
seemed  admissible.  The  scheme  of  the  lectures  I 
had  for  some  time  past  been  thinking  out,  in  the  in- 
tervals of  different  avocations.  But  binding  engage- 
ments, public  and  private,  did  not  facilitate  writing. 
Indeed,  the  delivery  of  the  lectures  contained  in 
this  volume  had  to  take  place  in  the  intervals  of 
utterances  of  other  kinds.  Possibly  there  has,  as 
a  consequence,  been  carried  into  what  follows 
something  of  an  atmosphere  which  is  not  strictly 
academic.  At  all  events,  by  the  terms  of  my 


Til 


viii  PEEFACE 

engagement  to  the  Gifford  Trustees,  I  was  bound 
to  publish  the  lectures  as  I  gave  them,  and  on 
reading  over  the  transcript  I  felt  that  it  contained 
things  which  I  wanted  to  say,  and  which  I  was 
not  likely  to  have  another  opportunity  of  saying- 
What  is  here  printed  is  simply  a  carefully  corrected 
copy  of  what  a  most  competent  shorthand  writer 
took  down  day  by  day.  To  the  lady  who  under- 
took this  duty  I  must  here  express  my  gratitude 
for  the  skill  with  which  she  spared  me  much  of  what 
is  often  a  wearisome  burden  of  correction.  Here  and 
there  I  wrote  out  passages,  and  these  I  used  where 
I  could.  But  in  the  main  I  relied  on  the  capacity  of 
the  reporter,  even  where  the  points  were  technical 
and  obscure.  The  only  exception  to  this  was  in  the 
last  part  of  the  first  lecture,  and  in  the  whole  of 
that  which  comes  seventh  in  order.  These  were 
written  during  a  holiday  in  Germany. 

Such  a  method  of  producing  a  metaphysical 
book  has  defects.  Stern  critics  may  say  that 
no  man  has  the  right  to  publish  anything  of  this 
kind  put  together  in  such  a  fashion.  I  admit  the 
weight  of  the  criticism,  and  I  throw  myself  on  the 
mercy  of  the  critics.  I  also  plead  that  the  Gifford 
Trustees  insisted,  somewhat  against  my  will,  on  my 
accepting  their  Lectureship,  and  then  bound  me  to 
publish  what  I  should  say.  I  am  not  by  profession 
a  philosopher,  and  as  I  had  no  reputation  to  lose, 
I  agreed  to  do  what  they  wished.  They  allowed 
me  time — and  time,  as  has  been  observed  by  persons 
of  great  authority,  is  infinitely  long.  Then  there 


PREFACE  ix 

were  some  things  to  be  considered  on  the  other  side. 
I  had  spent  in  these  investigations  a  good  deal  of 
my  life,  and  it  seemed  to  be  permissible  for  me, 
finding  myself  in  such  a  situation,  to  try  to  say 
how  the  world  seemed  to  one  whose  occupa- 
tions necessitated  his  living  in  it.  Again,  my 
plan,  the  only  possible  one  for  a  busy  person, 
was  not  wholly  without  its  advantages.  In  the 
first  place,  he  who  is  going  to  speak  ex  tempore 
has  to  make  a  determined  effort  not  to  allow  the 
trees  to  prevent  him  from  seeing  the  wood  as  a 
whole.  I  think  I  may  say  that  I  have  not  spared 
myself  in  the  effort  to  do  this.  The  writer  who 
shuts  himself  up  with  his  lamp  in  his  study  is 
sometimes  in  peril  of  getting  lost  in  his  details. 
He  is  tempted  to  think  as  he  expresses  himself, 
instead  of  thinking  before  he  expresses  himself. 
He  does  not  easily,  such  is  the  force  of  habit, 
reflect  as  he  walks  through  the  market  place. 
And  yet  the  market  place  has  its  own  kind  of 
stimulus  for  those  who  have  to  be  constantly 
striving  to  pull  themselves  together,  a  stimulus 
which  is  not  to  be  felt  to  the  same  extent  either 
in  the  pulpit  or  the  chair.  Moreover,  upon  the 
whole,  experience  shows  that  the  spoken  word  is 
better  for  teaching  purposes  than  the  written  manu- 
script. It  leaves  the  lecturer  free  to  follow  into 
their  perplexities  the  minds  of  those  who  are  his 
hearers.  Finally,  the  circumstance  that  he  has 
but  talked,  leaves  the  talker  with  a  sense  of  liberty 
remaining  to  him.  It  was,  I  think,  Eenan  who 


somewhere  declared  that  to  write  a  book  was  to 
limit  oneself.  If,  however,  the  author  has  but 
expressed  his  thought  in  language  which  owed  its 
form  to  the  audience  and  the  hour,  the  sense  of 
self-limitation  is  less  oppressive. 

In  my  earlier  volume  the  chief  topic  was  the 
complete  relativity  of  our  knowledge,  in  everyday 
life  and  in  physical  science.  The  nature  of  reality 
was  subjected  to  a  scrutiny  which  ended  in  the 
recognition  of  a  boundary  line  to  such  knowledge. 
Beyond  that  boundary  line  it  appeared  to  be  im- 
possible to  pass  in  the  absence  of  an  interpretation 
of  mind,  and  of  its  relation  to  the  Universe,  more 
definite  and  more  extensive  than  that  which  is 
current  in  everyday  usage.  In  this  volume  I  have 
done  what  I  could  to  find  the  interpretation  needed, 
and,  with  its  aid,  to  cross  the  line.  I  have  tried  to 
find  the  answer  to  the  question  what  we  are  really 
striving  to  express  when  we  speak  of  God  and  of 
Freedom  and  of  Immortality.  It  has  seemed  to 
me  that,  in  the  two  thousand  years  which  have 
passed  since  Aristotle  taught  on  these  topics, 
progress  in  our  knowledge  has  been  made,  but 
progress  in  the  main  on  certain  lines  which  he 
laid  down. 

The  first  volume  of  this  book  had  a  reception 
more  generous  than  one  who  is  to  be  reckoned 
with  laymen  was  entitled  to  look  for.  Only  of 
two  criticisms  which  were  made  on  it,  do  I  wish 
to  say  anything.  One  was  that  the  book  was  a 
mere  reproduction  in  modern  form  of  what  had 


PREFACE  xi 

before  been  taught  by  Aristotle  and  by  Hegel. 
On  this  I  will  merely  observe  that  the  criticism 
cannot  carry  the  critic  far.  I  believe  it  to  be 
true,  and  have  already  said  so.  But  my  assertion 
depends  for  its  validity  on  the  accuracy  of  my 
interpretation  of  the  doctrine  of  these  great  men. 
Now  of  what  is  a  very  difficult  doctrine  the  in- 
terpreters have  been  many,  and  as  various  as  they 
were  many.  They  have  not  seldom  reproached 
each  other  with  liberties  taken  with  their  gospel. 
Accordingly  I  will  endeavour  to  disarm  hostility  by 
frankly  confessing  here  that  in  both  volumes  I  have 
freely  used  the  method  of  what  theologians  call  exe- 
gesis. Some,  for  whose  judgment  and  authority  I 
have  the  deepest  respect,  have  shaken  their  heads, 
and  have  told  me  that,  whether  or  not  I  have  inter- 
preted Aristotle  aright,  I  have  not  truly  followed  the 
teaching  of  Hegel.  I  have  laid,  as  they  think,  too 
little  stress  on  the  abstract  element  in  knowledge 
and  on  the  dialectical  character  of  knowledge  as  a 
system  of  universals.  I  can  only  answer  that  what 
I  have  done  has  been  done  after  deliberation,  and 
that  in  the  present  volume  I  have  sought  to  justify 
it.  I  have  thought  for  long  that  metaphysical 
investigation  has  had  its  credit  seriously  impaired, 
not  only  in  Germany  but  in  this  country,  by  a  too 
narrow  view  taken  of  the  nature  of  mind.  This 
word  has  been  used  by  certain  writers  as  meaning 
either  the  process  of  relational  or  discursive  thought, 
in  its  essence  of  the  character  of  what  is  universal, 
or  else  something — no  one  seems  quite  to  know 


xii  PREFACE 

what — considered  somehow  to  exist  apart  from  time, 
and  to  be  that  of  which  thought  is  the  activity. 
The  next  step  has  been  to  put  the  process  (or  the 
activity,  as  the  case  may  be)  in  contrast  with  feel- 
ing. Thereupon  has  come  the  splitting  of  the 
philosophers  into  camps,  in  some  of  which  it  is 
sought  to  reduce  feeling  to  thought,  and  in  others 
to  reduce  thought  to  feeling.  In  short,  people 
have  fallen  into  the  way  of  insisting  on  construing 
the  concrete  riches  of  the  world  of  the  actual,  as  if 
they  must  be  reduced  either  to  universals  of  reflec- 
tion or  to  particulars  of  sense.  To  me  the  dilemma 
appears  to  rest  on  too  narrow  a  view  of  the  nature 
of  mind.  With  mind,  if  there  be  any  truth  in  the 
doctrine  of  these  lectures,  we  must  begin.  It  is  the 
actual,  what  lies  nearest  to  hand,  and  it  is  also  the 
ultimate,  beyond  which  we  cannot  get,  and  which 
can  only  be  described  in  terms  of  itself.  Universal 
and  particular  seem  to  me,  following  Aristotle, 
to  be  but  abstractions,  made  in  the  process  in  which 
it  is  actual  by  the  subject  which  has  before  and 
within  it  its  experience  and  itself.  That  subject, 
with  its  experience  and  its  self-consciousness,  is  the 
actual  concrete  fact  in  which  all  knowledge  has  its 
starting  point.  Such  a  starting  point  is  concerned 
with  what  is  singular  and  individual,  and  it  is  within 
what  is  thus  in  its  actuality  singular  and  individual 
that  the  universal  and  particular,  which  can  emerge 
only  as  abstractions,  have  reality.  The  grounds 
for  this  opinion,  which  appears  to  me  to  have  been 
that  of  Aristotle  and  Hegel,  and  to  have  been 


PREFACE  xiii 

dropped  out  of  sight  by  some  of  their  interpreters, 
I  partly  set  forth  in  the  earlier  lectures.  In  this 
series  I  have  returned  to  the  attack  from  another 
side.  I  am  unable  to  assent  to  a  narrow  use  of 
the  word  which  would  confine  thought  to  a  par- 
ticular mode  of  thinking  that  is  itself  the  mere 
outcome  of  abstraction.  Yet  this  identification 
seems  to  me  to  be  frequently  made  by  writers 
whose  aim  it  is  to  interpret  from  the  standpoint 
of  idealism.  That  Hegel  himself  (of  Aristotle  it 
is  hardly  necessary  to  speak)  would  have  repudi- 
ated this  form  of  idealism,  appears  from  his  express 
declarations.*  The  warnings  have  been  disregarded, 
and  the  result  has  been  something  of  a  breach  and 
much  of  confusion  in  the  camp  of  the  idealists.  A 
striking  incident  has  been  the  departure  of  Mr 
F.  H.  Bradley  from  the  headquarters  of  orthodox 
idealism,  and  his  adoption  of  a  separate  position, 
He  has  intimated  his  decision  that  thought,  rela- 
tional and  discursive  as,  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
late  Mr  Green  and  others  have  used  the  word,  he 
finds  it  to  be,  has  no  capacity  to  reach  final  truth 
or  to  penetrate  beyond  appearance.  Yet  is  Mr 
Bradley's  view  of  thought  sufficiently  wide  ?  One 
asks  how,  if  thought  be  merely  what  he  takes  it  to 
be,  he  gets  as  far  as  he  does.  Is  not  his  scepticism 
self-destructive  !  And  is  his  Absolute  any  better 
than  "  the  night  in  which  all  cows  look  black " ; 
an  unknowable  substance  of  which  we  may  say, 

*  See  Werke,  Band  vi.,  p.  5,  and  also  the  final  part  of  his 
Religions -Philosophic,  passim. 


xv 

"De  non  apparentibus  et  de  non  existentibus,  eadem 
est  ratio  f  "  Mr  Green  himself  seems  to  have  had 
misgivings  about  this  use  of  the  word  thought.  In 
one  passage  he  even  protests  against  it,  blaming 
Hegel,  as  I  think,  not  quite  justly.*  For  myself 
I  prefer  to  believe,  what  the  facts  seem  to  me  to 
demonstrate,  that  the  scope  of  the  activity  which  is 
of  the  essence  of  mind,  is  wider  than  the  limits  of 
relational  or  discursive  thinking.  It  follows  that 
abstract  reason  has  no  monopoly  of  the  means 
of  access  to  reality,  although  I  hold  it  to  be  the 
only  competent  guardian  of  the  pathway.  It  seems 
to  me  that  relational  thought  and  feeling  are  alike 
aspects  which  arise  by  distinctions  which  are  really 
abstract,  within  the  ultimate  reality  which  we  call 
Self-consciousness  or  Mind  or  Spirit,  and  which  is 
in  its  nature  singular  and  all-embracing.  In  this 
volume  I  have  accordingly  pressed  the  point  that  if 
by  the  word  thought  we  wish  to  indicate  the 
activity  in  which  mind  consists,  we  must  interpret 
it  as  extending  to  every  form  of  that  activity,  and 
not  in  the  contracted  sense  in  which  it  is  some- 
times used. 

For  these  and  other  reasons  which  are  set  out 
in  the  lectures  that  follow,  I  have  assigned  to  Art 
and  to  Religion  parts  as  important  as  that  of 
Philosophy  in  the  search  after  truth.  That,  like 
Philosophy,  Art  and  Religion  can  aim  at  reaching 
nothing  short  of  the  reality  that  is  ultimate,  I 
cannot  doubt.  The  difference  is  one  of  method  and 

*  See  Works  of  T.  H.  Green,  vol.  iii.,  p.  142.      . 


PREFACE  xv 

of  symbol  It  is  no  function  of  Art  or  of  Religion 
to  bring  us  to  scientific  results.  It  is  just  because 
the  scientific  aspect  of  the  truth  is  the  aim  of 
Philosophy  that  its  language  is  abstract  and  that 
its  methods  have  the  defect  of  their  quality.  Its 
results  can  never  be  for  our  minds  wholly  sufficing. 
At  our  plane  of  intelligence  the  tendency  to  frame 
abstractions,  and  so  to  separate  what  are  but 
aspects  in  a  single  reality,  the  Beautiful,  the  Good, 
and  the  True,  is  too  powerful.  Yet  the  content  of 
our  minds  will  not  the  less  on  this  account  always 
be  more  than  abstract  thought.  And  this  leads 
me  to  add  a  final  observation  to  this  preface. 

If  any  one  should  say  that  the  name  of  Goethe 
occurs  too  frequently  in  the  pages  of  what  purports 
to  be  a  metaphysical  book,  my  answer  will  be,  that 
my  way  of  looking  at  things  made  it  impossible 
not  to  turn  frequently,  in  the  course  of  an  investi- 
gation such  as  this,  to  the  greatest  critic  of  life  that 
has  spoken  in  modern  times.  Should  I,  in  the 
course  of  these  lectures,  have  succeeded  in  helping 
any  one  to  realise  more  fully  the  depth  of  meaning 
in  the  precept  of  that  great  genius  : — 

" .     .     .     Im  Ganzen,  Guten,  Schonen 
Resolut  zu  leben," 

I  shall  feel  that  I  have  been  well  repaid  for  the 
little  that  I  have  been  capable  of  doing. 


CLOANDKN,  AUCHTERARDER, 
1904. 


ERKATA 

On  p.  xiii.,  line  27,  far  "self-destructive!  "  read  "self-destructive?  " 

On  pp.  19  and  21,  for  "  Glancon  "  read  "Glaucon." 

On  p.  59,  in  footnote,  for  "  Glaubens-lehre"  read  "  Glaubenslehre." 

On  p.  126,  in  third  line  of  third  stanza,  for  "zients'  "  read  "ziemt's.' 

On  p.  145,  line  28,  for  "Boland  "  read  "Bolland." 

On  p.  158,  line  20,  for  "nnity  "  read  "unity." 

On  p.  240,  in  fifth  line  of  first  stanza,  for  "last  'gem"  read  "last  'gem. 

On  p.  240,  in  last  line  of  first  stanza,  for  "  Geniiss  "  read  "  Genuss." 

On  p.  273,  in  Index,  for  "  Boland  "  read  "  Bolland." 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 
BOOK  ILL 

ABSOLUTE    MIND 
LECTURE  I.  Pages  3  to  38 

RETROSPECT 

Throughout  these  Lectures  what  has  been  meant  by  the 
word  "  God  "  is  nothing  short  of  the  Highest  and  most  Real. 
The  images  and  metaphors  of  everyday  theology  are  inadequate 
in  an  inquiry  of  the  character  prescribed  by  Lord  Gifford. 
Ultimate  Reality  was,  as  the  result  of  the  first  series  of  lectures, 
found  to  be  Mind,  and  within  Mind  the  whole  of  experience, 
possible  as  well  as  actual,  was  found  to  fall.  In  the  course  of 
the  first  part  of  the  inquiry  three  things  became  apparent : — 

(1)  Peril  of  going  off  the  track  through  the  use  of  metaphors  ; 

(2)  the  necessity  for  careful  criticism  of  the  limits  and  validity 
of  categories ;   (3)  the  absurdity  and  self-contradiction  of  the 
notion  that   abstract   thought   could   either   be   a   product   of 
things,  or  itself  create  them.      Neither  Aristotle   nor   Hegel 
sought  to  deduce  nature   from    logical    forms,   though    it  is  a 
common  superstition  to  believe  that  they  did.     They  held  that 
self-consciousness  was  the  ultimate  fact  behind  which  it  was 
logically  impossible  to  go ;  that  it  was  no  net-work  of  abstract 
universals,  but  concrete  and  living  subject,  not  substance ;  that 
within  it  arose  and  were  contained,  as  the  outcome  of  its  own 
distinctions,  the  entire  universe  of  thought  and  things.     For 
them  this  ultimate  reality  was  individual,  unique,  and  singular, 
as  an  ultimate  fact  must  be.     Outside  of  it  nothing  could,  with 
any  intelligible  meaning,  be  said  to  exist,  and  within  it  the  two 

XTU  fr 


xviii  CONTENTS 

aspects  or  moments  of  its  nature  as  Intelligence,  the  universals 
of  thought  and  the  particulars  of  feeling,  were  separable  in 
logical  analysis  but  not  in  fact.  Among  the  further  topics 
which  must  engage  our  attention  are  the  question  in  what  sense 
mind  so  conceived  can  be  described  as  a  Person,  and  what  is 
the  relation  to  such  mind  of  the  finite  forms  in  which  self- 
consciousness  appears — e.g.,  in  man. 


LECTURE  II.       -  Pages  39  to  70 

Further  examination  of  what  is  implied  in  self-conscious 
mind.  Metaphors  more  than  usually  out  of  place  here.  To 
call  mind  a  "thing"  is  utterly  wrong.  To  call  it  "subject"  is 
better,  but  is  still  misleading,  for  the  distinction  from  the 
object,  though  essential  for  self-consciousness,  is  made  by  and 
falls  within  it.  Again,  to  look  upon  mind  as  resoluble  into 
feeling,  out  of  which  what  is  higher  has  become  evolved  by 
differentiation,  is  for  the  purpose  of  a  metaphysical  inquiry 
quite  insufficient,  for  such  evolution  presupposes  time,  and  time 
has  itself  to  be  accounted  for.  Nor,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
can  it  be  described  as  a  system  of  universals,  for,  as  Aristotle 
showed,  such  a  system  is  nothing  apart  from  the  particulars  in 
which  it  realises  itself.  It  must  be  described  in  terms  of  itself, 
as  a  final  and  unique  fact,  the  nature  of  which  is  to  be  disclosed 
only  by  the  study  of  its  own  movement.  The  meaning  of 
"  finiteness  "  in  relation  to  the  self.  Comparison  with  Berke- 
leianism.  With  the  rejection  of  the  conception  of  mind  as 
substance,  solipsism  becomes  meaningless,  for  it  is  apparent 
that  to  try  to  think  of  a  finite  self  as  the  ultimate  form  of 
reality  is  to  try  to  think  what  is  st  If -contradictory.  The  forms 
of  finitude  are  the  outcome  of  the  limited  ends  and  purposes  by 
which  our  intelligence  is  in  everyday  life  dominated.  Meaning 
of  Understanding  as  distinguished  from  Reason.  Illustration 
from  space  and  time.  The  categories  of  thought  are  the  forms 
of  Reason,  and  they  constitute  a  system  in  which  each  link 
logically  implies  every  other  link.  The  whole  system  is 
implicit  in  and  presupposed  by  the  earliest  link.  From  the 
days  of  Plato  onwards  the  method  of  the  greatest  thinkers  has 
more  or  less  explicitly  been  to  try  to  comprehend  and  set  out 
the  nature  and  interrelation  (if  categories.  Meaning  and 
nature  of  Dialectic.  The  Hegelian  "  Notion "  and  "  Idea." 


CONTENTS  xix 

The  nature  of  mind  is  to  posit  itself  in  distinction,  and  to 
comprehend  and  pass  beyond  the  distinctions.  What  is  called 
Pantheism  is  a  misunderstanding  of  the  nature  of  God. 


LECTURE  III.      -  Pages  71  to  94 

The  result  of  the  inquiry  so  far  has  been  to  insist,  with 
Bradley  and  Royce,  as  against  Green,  that  stress  must  not  be 
laid  exclusively  on  intelligible  relations.  But  Bradley  holds 
thought  to  be  at  once  capable  of  raising  the  problem  of  reality 
and  incapable  of  adequately  solving  it.  His  reason  is  that  to 
him  thought  appears  to  be  relational  or  finite.  It  is  difficult  to 
see  how  his  scepticism  can  escape  from  the  reproach  of  in- 
consistency. For  if  thought  is  adequate  to  the  comprehension 
of  its  own  limits,  it  must  be  able  to  go  beyond  these  limits. 
Royce's  work  is  valuable  because  of  his  insistence  on  the 
concrete  and  ethical  character  of  the  activity  of  intelligence. 
But  it  is  open  to  the  criticism  that  it  is  only  in  the  systematic 
exposition  of  its  own  forms  that  intelligence  can  at  all  adequately 
set  forth  its  nature  as  the  ultimate  reality.  Notwithstanding 
the  freshness  of  Royce's  method,  it  therefore  appears  to  be 
unsatisfying.  One  is  driven  back  to  the  Hegelian  system,  not 
because  one  believes  that  it  contains  the  final  word,  but  because 
of  its  unflinching  thoroughness.  The  value  of  Hegel's  attempt 
at  a  dialectical  explanation  of  the  relationship  of  the  distinctions 
which  self-consciousness  makes  is  that  it  leaves  no  gaps.  He 
declared  that  all  that  is  actual  is  rational,  and  all  that  is 
rational  is  actual,  and,  again,  that  the  spiritual  alone  is  the 
real,  but  he  certainly  did  not  mean  that  nature  could  be  dis- 
played in  terms  of  intelligible  relations.  He  insisted,  on  the 
contrary,  that  the  appearances  which  make  up  the  realm  of 
nature  have  the  characteristic  of  contingency  and  foreignness 
to  reason,  and  he  explains  that  this  is  so  because  the  system  of 
these  appearances  is  a  system  of  abstract  separations,  made  by 
intelligence  dominated  by  purposes  which  do  not  lead  to  full 
comprehension,  and  which  operate  under  finite  forms  of  thought. 
So  far  from  being  rational,  nature  is  rather  for  him  unreal, 
excepting  as  comprehended  at  a  higher  level  than  that  of 
thinking  under  finite  forms  of  self-consciousness,  a  comprehen- 
sion which  would  change  its  appearance.  Such  a  line  of 
criticism  leads  back  to  the  conception  of  God  as  the  mind  of 


xx  CONTENTS 

which  ours  is  a  manifestation  on  a  lower  plane.  The  Hegelian 
Logic  is  no  ordinary  logic,  but  the  system  of  categories  in 
which  the  notion,  the  characteristic  movement  of  thought, 
displays  itself.  This  system,  as  exhibited  in  the  Logic,  is  but 
one  aspect  of  Ultimate  Reality,  of  the  Absolute  Mind,  and  it  is 
reached  by  abstraction.  The  philosophy  of  nature  deals  with 
another  aspect  which  is  abstract  in  another  way,  and  is  the 
outcome  of  intelligence  operating  after  the  fashion  of  the 
understanding,  which  separates  and  isolates,  as  in  the  forms  of 
sense  perception,  in  space  and  time.  The  standpoint  of  such 
particularism  is  the  outcome  of  abstraction,  and,  like  that  of 
the  Logic,  finds  its  correction  and  completion  in  the  self- 
consciousness  of  concrete  spirit,  which  is  described  in  the 
Philosophy  of  Mind. 


LECTURE  IV.    -  ...         Pages  95  to  116 

It  is  the  elusiveness  of  the  subject-matter  that  makes 
philosophy  difficult.  Hard  thinking  is  the  only  instrument 
with  which  we  can  break  through  the  misleading  images  and 
metaphors  of  daily  use,  misleading  because  they  furnish  views 
which,  while  sufficient  for  the  purpose  in  hand,  and  in  that 
sense  representative  of  truth,  are  inadequate  for  those  who 
want  light  on  the  nature  of  Ultimate  Reality.  Art  and  religion 
demonstrate  the  fact  of  this  inadequacy,  and,  after  all,  the  diffi- 
culty appears  in  the  same  fashion  in  other  studies — for  example, 
those  of  the  higher  mathematics.  Having  found  that  the 
apparently  hidden  nature  of  Reality  is  self-conscious  mind 
which  contains  within  itself  all  the  appearances  which  go  to 
make  up  the  world  as  it  seems,  we  have  now  to  ascertain  how  and 
why  it  is  that  the  distinctions  exist  to  which  these  appearances  at 
their  various  grades  are  due.  That  self-consciousness  is  the 
final  form  of  mind  cannot  be  doubted,  for  the  very  doubt  really 
implies  the  principle  as  its  basis.  To  speak  of  absolute  mind 
as  unconscious  is  to  use  words  without  meaning.  In  some  sense, 
accordingly,  God  is  a  Person,  and  we  have  to  inquire  in  what 
sense !  The  fact  of  self-consciousness  implies  a  distinction  of 
subject  from  object,  of  self  from  not  self.  The  nature  of  mind 
is  to  make  distinctions  and  to  exist  in  and  through  them.  It  is 
no  inert  simultaneum,  but,  as  Aristotle  long  ago  pointed  out,  is 
active  reason,  life  and  more  than  life,  intelligence  which  com- 


CONTENTS  xxi 

prebends,  and  in  its  comprehension  is  present  in  every  form  of 
the  content  of  its  self-consciousness.  The  end  which  deter- 
mines its  activity  is  the  end  of  making  itself  explicit  to  itself, 
and  this  end  seems  to  be  implicit  even  in  the  lowest  forms  of 
mind.  In  its  lower  forms,  as  mere  understanding,  mind  lays 
stress  on  the  reality  of  its  distinctions  and  the  self-subsistence 
and  isolation  of  what  is  distinguished.  In  its  higher  forms,  as 
reason,  mind  interprets  and  comprehends  what  is  distinguished 
and  the  acts  of  distinction  as  having  meaning  only  as  links  or 
moments  in  a  series.  Examination  of  the  nature  of  time.  Time 
is  continuous  just  as  much  as  it  is  discrete,  and,  when  taken  as 
a  final  form  of  reality,  proves  to  be  self-contradictory  in  its 
conception,  and  unreal  in  appearance.  The  meaning  of  the 
expression  "  comprehension  sub  specie  ceternitatis."  The  world 
as  it  must  appear  in  the  mind  of  God.  The  degrees  of  reality 
in  appearance. 

LECTURE  V.    -  Pages  117  to  142 

In  this  lecture  we  must  not  pass  by  the  next  problem  that 
confronts  the  inquirer,  that  of  the  nature  of  finite  mind.  The 
ground  of  finiteness  lies  in  distinctions  made  within  the  Absolute 
Mind,  whereby  it  appears  as  object  to  and  other  than  itself. 
But  these  distinctions  and  what  results  from  them  presuppose, 
as  their  logical  foundation,  the  notion  of  a  mind  that  is  absolute. 
It  is  a  misconception  of  the  teaching  of  Hegel  to  imagine  that 
he  identified  the  Absolute  Mind  with  mind  as  it  appears  in 
History.  For  there  the  forms  in  which  mind  displays  itself  are 
never  more  than  finite,  i.e.,  relative  to  what  has  gone  before  or 
is  to  come  after.  What  we  are  dealing  with  is  not  the  relations 
of  substances  derived  from  substance,  but  stages  or  planes  in 
the  comprehension  of  its  own  appearances  by  all-embracing 
mind.  Indeed  there  may  well  be  higher  planes  of  comprehen- 
sion than  that  which  characterises  the  mind  of  man  or  the 
world-spirit,  and  such  planes  may  yet  be  finite.  Man  is  at  once 
in  separation  from  and  in  union  with  God,  because  the  founda- 
tion of  his  existence  is  Intelligence,  the  essential  characteristic 
of  which  is  Dialectic,  difference  in  unity  and  unity  in  difference. 
Thus  man  has  a  double  nature,  out  of  which  arises  for  him, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  consciousness  of  separation  from  God,  or 
evil;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  consciousness  of  potential 
union  with  God,  or  religion.  Though  finite  spirit,  man  is  nope 


xxii  CONTENTS 

the  less  spirit,  consequently  he  is  essentially  free,  and  therefore 
responsible.  The  relational  character  of  the  finite,  insistence  on 
which  is  the  mark  of  the  understanding,  and  the  quality  of 
dialectic,  because  of  which  spirit,  even  though  it  be  finite,  has 
to  distinguish  itself  from  what  is  other  than  it,  and  yet  to  find 
itself  in  that  other,  is  the  explanation  of  man's  relation  to 
nature.  It  is  also  the  reason  why  he  appears  to  himself  as 
emerging  out  of  nature,  and  as  one  among  many  others.  The 
doctrine  of  degrees  of  reality  in  appearance  is  important  in  this 
connection.  It  is  because  man,  though  spirit,  is  finite  spirit, 
and  because  what  is  typical  of  his  knowledge  of  his  every-day 
world  is  the  separation  and  isolation  which  the  understanding 
seeks  to  make,  that  for  his  plane  of  comprehension  the  universe 
with  himself  in  it  appears  as  it  does.  As  Hegel  points  out, 
nature  cannot  be  taken  as  appearing  to  God  in  the  abstract 
externalities  of  space  and  time,  and  indeed  stands  to  Him  in  no 
direct  relation,  for  the  plane  of  appearance  which  is  distinctive 
of  it  pertains  merely  to  the  finite  mind  of  man.  Nature  is  in 
the  mind  of  God  only  in  as  much  as  the  mind  of  man  is  compre- 
hended as  a  degree  in  the  absolute  mind  of  God.  Bosanquet's 
analysis  of  the  relation  pf  the  "  universal  self "  to  the  actual 
individual  consciousness. 

LECTURE  VI.  Pages  143  to  170 

The  problem  of  the  nature  of  God.  Retrospect.  In  His 
nature  there  can  be  conceived  no  difference  between  Thought 
and  Thinker,  for  we  have  passed  beyond  the  category  of  sub- 
stance. With  Him  to  create  must  mean  to  think,  and  to  think 
to  create.  Thus  intelligence  and  volition  fall  together.  Because 
self-consciousness  turns  out  to  be  the  highest  of  all  categories, 
and  to  be  the  basis  of  all  intelligence  and  therefore  the  pre- 
supposition of  our  reasoning  about  the  nature  of  ultimate  reality, 
God  must  be  self-conscious.  He  must  have  ends  which  are 
realised  in  the  mere  fact  of  their  being  proposed.  The 
character  of  His  activity  cannot  be  represented  in  images 
drawn  from  the  world  of  appearance  in  space  and  time.  Yet 
because  His  nature  is  to  posit  and  realise  Himself  in  forms 
which  are  the  forms  of  otherness,  in  difference,  and  yet  be  self- 
identical,  that  nature  cannot  resemble  the  Spinozistic  simultaneum 
of  Pantheism,  which  lands  us  in  a  lifeless  identity  without 
difference.  Here  it  is  more  than  usually  necessary  to  study 


CONTENTS  xxiii 

critically  the  categories  we  employ,  and  to  guard  against  the 
anthropomorphism  which  is  natural  and  comparatively  harmless 
in  other  spheres  of  inquiry.  Inasmuch  as  mind  conceived  as 
Absolute  must  be  self-conscious,  it  must  have  an  object  through 
distinction  of  itself  from  which  it  is  so.  As  it  is  all-embracing 
that  object  can  be  no  other  than  itself,  distinguished  by  itself 
from  itself.  It  must  be  for  itself,  and  comprehend  itself  in  the 
utmost  fulness — compare  the  VOTJOHS  voTycrecos  of  Aristotle,  and 
his  doctrine  of  the  Active  Reason.  Because  what  appears  for 
the  mind  of  God  as  its  other  is  just  itself,  that  other  is  self- 
conscious,  and  because  its  essential  characteristic  is  to  be  for 
God,  to  stand  in  relation  to  and  depend  on  Him,  it  is  finite, 
and  the  forms  of  its  knowledge  are  throughout  marked  by 
finiteness.  While  potentially  those  of  reason,  they  are  actually 
those  of  understanding.  Thus  in  the  mind  of  man,  which,  like 
the  mind  of  God,  seeks  to  distinguish  itself  from  its  other  or 
not-self,  as  the  very  condition  of  self-consciousness,  there  arises 
a  world  of  appearances  in  relations  of  isolation.  Space  and 
time  are  fundamental  among  such  forms,  but  nature  presents 
many  others  less  strikingly  characterised  by  apparent  irration- 
ality and  contingency,  and  these  forms  of  knowledge  ultimately 
turn  out  to  be  comprehended  and  to  have  their  truth  in  self- 
knowledge,  in  which  mind,  having  found  nature  to  be  only 
/or  itself,  and  thus  its  not-self  to  be  really  itself,  is  at  a  higher 
plane  of  comprehension  than  that  in  which  nature  is  given. 
The  forms  of  finite  mind  and  the  differences  which  are  thus 
created  have  their  value,  meaning,  and  justification  as  stages 
in  the  dialectical  movement  in  which  Absolute  Mind  is  con- 
scious of,  and  so  realises  and  enriches,  itself.  Without  them 
God  were  not  perfect.  In  Him  they  are  comprehended  and 
transformed.  Only  by  the  free  choice  of  finite  Spirit  in  select- 
ing its  ends  have  they  assumed  the  aspect  of  hard-and-fast 
separation  from  God,  and  in  the  spirit  that  knows  itself  as  one 
with  Him  and  His  ends  this  aspect  is  comprehended  and  put 
past.  For  the  scope  of  the  Divine  Intelligence  is  not  contracted 
by  finite  ends  as  is  ours.  Yet  even  in  man  such  ends  and 
purposes  are  not  the  only  ones,  nor  are  his  comprehension  and 
nature  wholly  limited  by  them.  In  Art  and  in  Religion  he 
passes  beyond  his  finiteness.  This  is  what  is  meant  to  be 
illustrated  by  such  phrases  as  "  Dying  to  Live."  The  medium 
of  Religion  is,  like  that  of  Art,  not  abstract  thought.  Religion 
is  a  practical  matter ;  it  belongs  to  the  will  and  it  expresses 


xxiv  CONTENTS 

itself  emotionally,  as  a  "  new  heart."  It  is  the  consciousness  of  a 
direct  relation  to  God,  but  in  forms  that  belong  to  the  region 
of  feeling,  and  are  consequently  describable  only  symbolically. 
Under  its  own  forms  it  grasps  the  presence  of  God  as  here  and 
now  in  the  object  world  ;  it  is  the  sense  that  He  is  immediately 
manifested,  and  this  feeling  is  expressed  in  the  symbols  and 
pictorial  manifestations  of  the  creeds.  The  metaphysical  theory 
is  that  Absolute  Mind  is  conscious  of  itself  in  Another  which  is 
just  itself,  and  that  these,  its  two  aspects,  are  only  distinguish- 
able by  abstraction  in  the  entirety  of  self-conscious  Spirit  of 
which  they  are  the  moments.  This  Christianity  expresses  in 
the  well-known  symbolical  form  of  a  Father  who  sends  His 
Only  Begotten  Son  into  otherness,  the  world,  to  return  to  Him 
with  the  otherness  overcome  and  the  redemption  of  the  world 
accomplished.  Thus  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  which  is  by 
no  means  peculiar  to  Christianity,  embodies  a  profound  truth. 
It  is  an  analysis  in  symbolical  form  of  the  three  aspects  or 
moments  in  the  self-consciousness  of  God,  in  Hegelian  termin- 
ology, Logic,  Finite  Intelligence  (including  Nature  and  Finite 
Spirit),  and  Absolute  Spirit ;  the  realisation  of  the  Universal 
and  the  Particular  in  the  Individual.  We  are  neither  to  con- 
found Persons  nor  divide  Substances.  The  Athanasian  Creed, 
which  owed  its  origin  to  the  influence  of  Neo-Platonic  meta- 
physics in  the  Church  of  Alexandria,  has  been  too  little 
appreciated.  The  analysis  also  throws  light  on  the  origin  of 
evil,  the  responsibility  for  which  rests  with  the  finite  spirit 
which  is  free  to  prefer  the  good.  Because  man  can  transcend 
his  separation  from  God  he  is  responsible.  In  order  to  be 
finite  man  he  must  be  separated,  and  his  duty  is  to  overcome 
his  separation.  The  choice  of  a  higher  plane  implies  the 
surrender  of  the  self,  with  its  particularism.  Thus  evil  arises 
and  is  a  necessary  moment  in  the  Universe.  But  it  is  in  finite 
spirit  that  it  arises,  and,  like  nature  generally,  it  stands  in  no 
direct  relation  with  God.  Because  man  is  thus  separate  from 
God,  and  must  surrender  his  finite  nature  in  order  to  gain 
union  with  Him,  he  worships.  The  love  of  God  is  just  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  potential  unity  of  the  finite  and  the  absolute  self. 

This  completes  the  examination  in  outline  of  the  theoretical 
aspect  of  the  nature  of  Ultimate  Reality.  The  succeeding 
lectures  will  deal  with  concrete  questions  which  arise  out  of 
the  relation  of  man  to  God, 


CONTENTS  xxv 


BOOK   IV. 

FINITE    MIND 

LECTURE  I.     -  Pages  173  to  200 

As  we  have  seen,  the  mind  as  human  is  finite ;  knows  itself 
as  known,  and  as  known  yet  knows.  It  comprehends  itself  in 
time-distinctions,  the  characteristic  of  which  is  relativity.  But 
even  in  presentation  knowledge  is  aware  of  its  own  limits,  and 
in  comprehending  transcends  them.  The  recognition  of  beauty, 
however,  is  not  abstract  knowledge.  It  is  in  the  immediacy  of 
feeling  that  we  are  conscious  of  beauty,  although  it  is  only  for 
the  mind  that  is  capable  of  thought.  The  object  of  Art  must 
be  expressive.  The  beautiful  in  Art  is  higher  in  its  kind  than 
the  beautiful  in  Nature.  Schopenhauer's  view  of  music.  The 
true  meaning  of  poetry.  Goethe  on  the  study  of  Art.  Art 
never  really  expounds  abstract  conceptions,  yet  the  world  as  it 
is  for  Art  is  what  it  is  in  virtue  of  Reason,  which  shines,  as  it 
were,  through  a  sensuous  garment.  The  difference  between 
the  artist  and  the  man  of  science.  Kant's  Critique  of 
Judgment.  Schiller  and  Carlyle.  Beauty  is  the  middle 
term  between  sense  and  thought. 

LECTURE  II.    -  Pages  201  to  225 

In  Art  mind  stands  revealed  to  itself  in  sensuous  form,  but 
as  freed  from  the  trammels  of  finitude.  In  Religion  we  have 
a  similar  deliverance.  Religion  is  a  phase  of  the  will,  and 
belongs  to  the  region  of  practice.  As  in  the  case  of  Art  its 
certainty  is  immediate,  and  assumes  the  form  of  feeling.  In 
Philosophy  also  the  mind  transcends  the  limits  of  the  finite  in 
comprehending  them.  But  its  medium  is  not  concrete,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  other  two.  Its  procedure  is  like  that  of  the 
sciences,  for  it  concentrates  on  that  aspect  of  mind  in  which 
mind  appears  as  an  abstract  system,  and  thus  Philosophy  gets 


xxvi  CONTENTS 

beyond  the  limits  of  what  is  immediate.  One  of  its  problems 
is  the  deeper  meaning  of  the  contrast  between  life  and  death. 
The  aspects  in  which  the  self  presents  itself  as  body  and  soul 
belong  to  time,  and  are  in  their  nature  transitory.  Explanation 
of  this.  For  these  aspects  death  is  a  necessary  and  natural 
part  of  their  history.  Illustrations  of  how  death  is  natural  in 
the  case  of  animals  and  human  beings.  But  this  is  only  a  part 
of  the  meaning  of  death.  It  has  been  said  to  be  superseded  in 
a  higher  stage  of  the  reality  of  self-consciousness ;  considera- 
tion of  this  opinion.  The  antithesis  between  life  and  death  is 
the  work  of  understanding,  and  is  not  a  final  view.  The  real 
significance  of  what  is  called  eternal  life.  Is  it  for  us  more 
than  an  abstraction  ?  Consideration  of  this  question. 


LECTURE  III.  Pages  226  to  253 

It  is  clear  that  as  subject  the  mind  is  directly  conscious  of 
possessing  an  infinite  and  non-sensuous  character,  and  is  con- 
tinuously yielding  up  the  particularity  of  its  forms.  This 
infinite  quality  cannot  be  exhaustively  given  in  any  temporal 
present,  and  hence,  as  expressive  of  the  limit  of  that  temporal 
present,  the  mind  determines  itself  as  realised  in  a  future.  In 
this  attempt  to  present  as  a  temporal  picture  the  infinite  quality 
of  the  mind,  an  antinomy  arises,  which,  like  other  antinomies, 
can  only  be  solved  by  a  deeper  and  more  thinking  considera- 
tion. Reason  why  the  difficulty  does  not  arise  in  Art  or 
Religion.  The  pictures  of  Art  are  symbolical.  The  faith 
which  characterises  the  self-surrender  of  the  will  in  Religion 
is  a  sense  of  reality  above  and  beyond  what  is  seen.  In  its 
doctrines  of  the  eternal  nature  of  the  self  and  of  degrees  in 
reality  Metaphysics  teaches  the  same  truth  in  scientific  form. 
The  true  relation  of  spirit  to  spirit,  and  the  meaning  of  Love 
in  its  highest  and  most  general  sense.  The  understanding  can 
never  solve  the  problem  of  another  life,  for  it  is  hampered  by 
a  dilemma  based  on  the  finality  of  the  idea  of  duration.  A 
direct  presentation  of  the  unreality  of  death  can  never  be 
accomplished  in  our  picture  world,  and  yet  the  recognition  of 
that  unreality  is  necessitated.  For  a  higher  degree  of  know- 
ledge, though  short  of  absolute  knowledge,  such  recognition 
may  present  no  difficulty.  For  ordinary  knowledge  it  appears 
only  in  the  symbolical  representations  of  Art  and  Religion. 


CONTENTS  xxvii 

LECTURE  IV.  Pages  254  to  272 

Characteristics  of  the  doctrine  of  the  mind  of  man  as  set 
out  in  the  preceding  lectures.  The  teaching  of  what  is  called 
"  Spiritualism "  has  no  bearing  on  it.  Place  of  Spiritualism, 
as  expounded  by  Mr  Myers  and  others,  in  anthropology. 

Survey  of  the  ground  covered  in  the  twenty  Gifford  Lectures 
now  delivered,  and  of  the  results  reached.  CONCLUSION. 


BOOK  III 

ABSOLUTE  MIND 


LECTURE  I 

I  HAVE  to  resume  these  lectures  at  the  point  at 
which  I  laid  down  the  thread  in  January  last.  My 
task,  as  prescribed  by  Lord  Gifford,  is  to  inquire 
into  the  nature  of  God.  For  that  task  he  also 
prescribed  the  spirit  in  which  its  execution  was  to 
be  carried  out.  It  was  to  be  executed  impartially, 
and  in  a  scientific  fashion,  without  fear  and  without 
favour.  I  have  endeavoured  in  the  course  of  the 
lectures  which  I  have  already  delivered  to  look  to 
the  truth  and  the  truth  only  as  my  goal,  and  I  shall 
seek  in  the  course  which  I  have  now  to  commence 
to  observe  the  same  principle. 

In  the  last  series  I  began  by  pointing  out  that  to 
inquire  into  the  nature  of  God  must  be  to  inquire 
into  the  nature  of  Reality,  and  I  examined  at  some 
length  the  meaning  of  such  words  as  Reality  and 
Truth.  These  lectures,  which  have  since  been 
published,  were  of  necessity  critical  rather  than 
constructive.  I  had  to  prepare  to  build,  and  for 
that  purpose  it  was  necessary  that  I  should  clear 
the  ground  before  I  could  endeavour  to  place  upon 
it  a  structure.  I  have  now  to  try  to  carry  out  the 
constructive  portion  of  my  undertaking ;  but  before 


4  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [Lscr.  i. 

I  enter  upon  it  I  wish  to  remind  you  of  the  sub- 
stance of  what  has  already  been  done. 

We  were  confronted  in  the  beginning  of  our  in- 
quiry into  the  nature  and  meaning  of  Reality  with 
this  fact,  a  fact  which  looked  formidable,  that  the 
world  as  it  seems  around  us  presents  an  aspect 
which  is  apparently  alien  to  mind  and  impenetrable 
by  thought.  We  had  to  consider  what  I  called  the 
hard-and-fastness  of  that  world  as  it  is  presented 
to  us,  and  to  endeavour  to  trace  to  its  source  the 
reason  of  that  characteristic.  You  will  recall  that 
I  traced  that  characteristic  back  to  its  source  in  the 
limited  ends  and  purposes  which  govern  us  men 
and  women  in  thinking  our  experience.  I  pointed 
out  to  you  that  this  hard-and-fastness,  this  impene- 
trability of  the  object  world,  owed  its  significance 
to  a  certain  "  setting  "  in  which  our  knowledge  was 
placed  by  the  dominating  influence  upon  that 
knowledge  of  ends  and  purposes  of  a  limited 
character,  necessary  for  our  social  lives,  but  which 
yet  were  not  of  a  nature  sufficiently  far-reaching  to 
guide  us  in  the  search  after  ultimate  truth. 
Analysis  showed  that  these  ends  and  purposes  were 
neither  final  nor  exhaustive,  and  in  this  conclusion 
we  found  ourselves  in  the  company  of  a  number  of 
people  who  had  approached  the  subject  from  differ- 
ent points  of  view,  but  who  had  converged  on 
something  like  the  same  result !  Men  so  different 
as  Berkeley,  Mill,  Plato,  Aristotle,  Kant,  and  the 
later  Germans,  had  all  pointed  out  that  it  is  the 
way  in  which  we  think  things  that  gives  rise  to 


RETROSPECT  5 

much  of  what  we  take  to  be  the  objective  universe 
in  which  we  live. 

Put  shortly,  it  may  be  said  that  it  is  ends  and 
not  causes  which  fashion  that  universe,  and  thus 
we  get  to  the  conclusion  that  knowledge  is,  in  a 
deeper  sense  than  that  in  which  the  expression  is 
commonly  used,  relative.  The  relativity  of  all  our 
knowledge  is  a  relativity  which  depends,  not  upon 
the  fact  that  there  is  something  hidden  behind,  for 
there  is  no  warrant  for  the  belief  in  any  hidden 
thing-in-itself,  but  upon  this,  that  the  ends  and 
purposes  which  dominate  and  control  our  thinking 
are  not  final  or  ultimate  ends  and  purposes. 

Now  the  inquiry  which  I  have  summarised,  and 
which  occupied  the  last  ten  lectures,  led  us  to  take 
warning  against  certain  perils  which  beset  the 
searcher  after  truth.  One  of  these  perils  arises 
from  the  habit  into  which  we  readily  fall  of  using, 
in  such  an  investigation  as  we  are  engaged  in, 
metaphors  and  similes  which  are  appropriate  for 
everyday  purposes,  but  which  are  wholly  out  of 
place  in  regions  which  are  not  akin  to  the  regions 
from  which  they  are  drawn.  Thus  men  and  women 
have  been  led  to  torture  themselves  and  to  cause 
themselves  endless  perplexity  by  trying  to  conceive 
the  mind  as  a  thing.  If  it  be  a  thing,  how  natural 
to  look  upon  it  as  operated  upon  by  mechanical 
causes,  and  as  incapable  of  freedom,  in  any  sense  in 
which  meaning  can  be  given  to  the  word  !  Yet  we 
found  that  the  notion  of  the  mind  being  a  thing, 
was  a  notion  which  rested  upon  metaphors  which 


6  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

were  wholly  inapplicable  when  we  were  treating  of 
the  nature  of  the  mind. 

Let  me  take  a  second  danger  which  the  last 
course  of  lectures  was  designed  to  illustrate.  We 
are,  as  I  have  just  said,  prone  to  bring  to  bear  upon 
the  subject  matter  into  which  we  are  inquiring 
conceptions  or  categories  which  are  wholly  out  of 
place,  and  that  is  a  danger  which  besets  not  only 
philosophers  but  people  whose  work  is,  in  the 
special  sense  of  the  word,  scientific.  For  example, 
as  we  saw  in  the  last  series,  in  physiology  the  in- 
sistence upon  a  mechanical  way  of  looking  at 
things  has  affected  the  researches  which  from  time 
to  time  have  been  undertaken,  in  such  a  fashion  as 
to  lead,  not  only  to  confusion  of  thought,  but  to  a 
good  deal  of  deflection  of  experiment  into  channels 
which  are  not  the  natural  channels. 

And  this  carries  with  it  further  consequences 
which  arise  from  the  misuse  of  categories.  We  are 
very  apt,  when  we  get  a  view  of  experience  and  fix 
it  as  a  particular  aspect,  to  take  that  view,  that 
aspect,  as  exhaustive  of  the  whole.  But  such  a 
conclusion  speedily  carries  Nemesis  in  its  train, 
because  we  find,  as  I  showed  you  in  detail  in 
the  last  four  lectures  of  the  former  course,  that  we 
fall  into  endless  contradictions  when  we  do  anything 
of  the  sort.  Therefore  a  criticism  of  categories  is 
essential  in  philosophy.  We  must  know  what  is 
the  relation  to  one  another  of  the  conceptions  of 
which  we  make  use,  and  what  is  the  limit  of  their 
validity. 


PEEILS  OF  THE  EOAD  7 

Then  there  is  a  third  peril  to  which  I  had  to 
allude  in  some  detail  before,  and  which  is  of  quite 
a  different  character,  although  in  its  source  it  is 
akin  to  the  two  others.  Philosophy  has  got  into 
disrepute  by  the  carelessness  of  philosophers  in  the 
use  of  language.  It  is  not  possible  to  be  always 
accurate  in  language,  especially  when  you  are 
carrying  into  a  region  of  research  which  is  quite 
different  from  other  regions  of  research,  words  and 
phrases  which  are  taken  from  the  usages  of  every- 
day life.  But  still  it  was  not  necessary  for  thinkers 
—  and  even  very  great  thinkers  have  been  to 
blame  here — to  have  led  the  world  to  suppose  that 
philosophy  tries  to  do  what  it  ought  never  to  try  to 
do.  For  example,  it  has  been  common  to  suppose 
that  idealism  meant  that  somehow  the  professor  of 
idealism  would  show  how  thought  made  a  thing, 
instead  of  simply  showing  what  the  meaning  of 
being  a  thing  is,  and  in  what  its  reality  consists. 
Even  the  great  Kant  has  not  been  wholly  free 
from  this  reproach.  But  I  pointed  out  to  you 
that  thought  cannot  properly  be  said  to  make 
things. 

The  word  "make"  is  a  metaphor,  drawn  from 
the  regions  of  space  and  time,  and  is  wholly  inade- 
quate to  express  the  relation  of  thought  to  its 
object.  None  of  the  great  thinkers  have  really 
preached  the  heresy  in  question,  particularly  not 
those  whose  names  are,  in  the  popular  imagination, 
most  associated  with  the  doctrine.  Aristotle  and 
Hegel  are  really  wholly  free  from  the  imputation, 


8  ABSOLUTE  MIND 

nor  does  their  language,  when  properly  scanned, 
lend  countenance  to  the  notion  that  they  taught 
the  heresy. 

Well,  so  much  for  the  negative  part  of  the 
earlier  set  of  lectures.  The  conclusion  at  which 
I  asked  you  to  arrive  with  me  was  this,  that  God's 
nature  could  not  be  of  a  quality  less  than  the 
quality  of  Ultimate  Reality,  and  that  the  meta- 
phors and  images  of  ordinary  theology  are  wholly 
inadequate  as  a  description  of  God's  nature.  Now 
it  is  useless  to  do  what  a  considerable,  and,  I  fancy, 
for  the  moment,  a  growing  school  of  theologians 
are  seeking  to  accomplish.  They  are  trying  to 
bring  us  back  to  an  everyday  view  of  the  nature  of 
God,  away  from  the  regions  in  which  metaphysics 
has  taught  us  to  search.  Those  who  imagine  that 
they  are  rendering  a  service  to  the  permanent 
character  of  theology  by  going  back  to  feeling,  by 
limiting  what  ought  to  be  accurate  description  to 
the  ordinary  metaphors  of  everyday  life,  are  really 
rendering  no  service.  They  are  sowing  no  seed. 
They  can  expect  no  fruit.  They  are  ploughing  the 
sands.  If  the  nature  of  God  is  to  be  investigated, 
it  must  be  investigated  in  the  light  of  a  searching 
criticism  of  the  categories  implied,  otherwise  we 
shall  encounter  the  danger  expressed  in  the  now 
trite  saying  of  Goethe,  "Man  never  knows  how 
anthropomorphic  he  is." 

While  the  analysis  of  the  last  set  of  lectures 
began  with  the  view  of  things  which  we  traced  to 
the  domination  of  those  various  limited  purposes  of 


FINITE  ENDS  IN  KNOWLEDGE        9 

which  I  have  spoken  as  the  source  of  a  considerable 
amount  of  error,  I  pointed  out  that  the  ends  and 
purposes  which  dominate  have  their  origin  in  the 
necessities  of  everyday  life ;  that  they  come  from 
this,  that  we  men  and  women,  in  our  intercourse 
with  one  another,  must  speak  on  the  basis  of  a 
common  foundation.  That  common  foundation 
comes  to  be  largely  expressed  in  phrases  which 
owe  their  origin  to  the  social  ends  which  we  have 
in  view,  ends  which  by  degrees  pass  in  our  minds 
into  the  appearance  of  being  the  only  ends  with 
which  we  are  concerned.  I  pointed  out  that  this 
was  so  in  the  sciences,  just  as  much  as  in  everyday 
life,  only  that  in  the  sciences  what  is  done  is  done 
consciously.  In  the  sciences  what  we  do  is  to  take 
an  aspect  of  things,  a  particular  aspect ;  to  con- 
centrate on  it  to  the  exclusion  of  other  aspects, 
and,  by  the  clearness  of  thought  which  we  thus 
obtain,  to  get,  by  means  of  reasoning,  beyond  what 
is  immediately  present  to  the  senses.  In  geometry, 
for  example,  we  abstract  from  everything  excepting 
the  relations  of  space,  and  we  construct  figures  with 
a  clearness  and  a  concentration  of  mind  which 
enables  us  to  get  far  beyond  what  the  senses  could 
tell  us.  But  these  figures  are  ideal.  The  concrete 
riches  of  the  universe  have,  for  the  purposes  of  the 
inquiry  of  the  geometer,  been  put  out  of  account — 
rightly  put  out  of  account — for  they  are  not  relevant 
to  that  inquiry,  but  yet  put  out  of  account  in  a 
fashion  which  makes  the  investigations  of  geometry 
a  guide  to  only  a  partial  aspect  of  the  truth.  Now, 


10  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

what  is  true  of  the  abstract  conceptions  of  geometry 
is  true  in  a  varying  degree  of  every  other  science. 
We  traced  the  process,  in  our  account  of  the  special 
sciences,  down  to  the  abstractions  of  psychology 
in  the  method  of  what  is  called  Presentationism. 
It  is  the  procedure  of  science  to  exclude  those 
aspects  which  are  not  germane  to  the  ends  which 
the  man  of  science  has  in  view,  in  order  to  con- 
centrate with  greater  clearness  and  greater  insight 
on  the  particular  aspect  which  does  concern  him. 
In  that  fashion  the  man  of  science  reminds  one  of 
the  procedure  of  everyday  life,  where  the  ends  and 
purposes  which  guide  us  in  thinking  our  experience 
are  ends  and  purposes  which  often  shut  us  out  from 
what  may  prove  to  be  a  deeper  insight  into  its 
character. 

As  the  result  we  found  that  all  that  is  or  can  be 
conceived  has  meaning  only  as  expressing  distinc- 
tions which  fall  within  the  mind  itself.  Even  space 
and  time  are  distinctions,  have  meaning  and  exist- 
ence only  as  distinctions,  which  fall  within  self- 
consciousness.  These  distinctions  are  distinctions 
which  are  before  or  for  the  mind,  and  in  them 
phenomena  get  their  setting  and  their  significance. 
The  Ultimate  Reality  we  therefore  found  to  be 
mind  and  nothing  else,  to  be  subject  rather  than 
substance,  although  even  the  expression  "subject" 
is  one  which  we  cannot  use  without  a  certain 
amount  of  explanation.  For  the  word  "subject" 
suggests  what  is  called  subjective  idealism,  suggests 
the  return  to  the  notion  of  the  mind  as  a  thing 


MY  CONSCIOUSNESS  11 

constructing  or  building  up  its  experience — a  view 
which  got  some  countenance  in  Kant's  division  of 
the  mind  into  faculties,  a  division  which  suggested 
that  the  mind  could  be  put,  as  it  were,  upon  the 
table,  and  dissected  into  component  elements. 

Now,  there  is  no  making  of  things  by  thought 
in  that  sense.  The  "  window  "  theory  of  the  mind 
represents  one  extreme  of  untruth,  the  theory, 
namely,  that  things  have  an  independent  existence, 
and  that  somehow  knowledge  is  a  streaming  from 
them  into  the  interior  of  the  mind  as  into  a  vacant 
chamber.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  untrue, 
as  I  showed  you,  to  try  to  exhibit  experience  as  a 
piecing  or  putting  together  by  the  mind  of  what  is 
to  be  thought  of  as  a  magic  lantern  picture  which 
the  mind  projects,  and  which,  compared  with  what 
projects  it,  is  unreal.  My  self-consciousness  is  not 
a  thing  that  makes  its  object,  for  object  and  subject 
equally  fall  within  it.  My  self-consciousness  is 
feeling  just  as  much  as  thought,  and  thought  just 
as  much  as  feeling,  and  the  separation  of  the  two 
arises  from  a  distinction  which  falls  within  it.  Self- 
consciousness  is  in  form  reflection,  within  which  the 
whole  meaning  of  existence  falls,  and  within  which 
all  existence  emerges.  Later  on  in  these  lectures  we 
shall  have  to  consider  what  is  the  meaning  of  the 
word  "  my  "  in  this  connection,  and  to  ask  whether 
it  is  not  true  that  there  too  we  have  a  distinction 
which  falls  within  self-consciousness.  But  feeling 
and  thought — this  is  the  point  of  my  observation — 
are  not  two  elements  which  exist  separately,  the  one 


12  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LBCT.  i. 

from  the  other.  They  are  rather  related  as  the 
particular  and  the  universal  which  have  no  inde- 
pendent existences,  but  are  merely  moments  of  con- 
crete reality  in  the  individual,  actual,  and  concrete 
singular  of  direct  experience,  within  which  they  are 
only  separable  by  abstraction.  Behind  conscious- 
ness I  can  neither  go  nor  find  meaning  in  trying  to 
go.  That  consciousness  is  before  itself  as  my  con- 
sciousness is  a  fact  which,  as  we  shall  find  later  on, 
makes  no  difference. 

If  one  has  to  characterise  reality  one  must 
characterise  it  as,  in  the  sense  I  have  indicated, 
individual.  The  real  is  always  something  singular, 
unique,  having  nothing  else  like  it.  It  is  always 
a  "this."  So  is  self-consciousness  itself.  And  it 
is  equally  true  that  self-consciousness,  when  I 
reflect  that  time  is  itself  but  a  relation  or  dis- 
tinction falling  within  self-consciousness,  may  be 
characterised  as  having  for  the  form  of  its  exist- 
ence an  eternal  "now."  There  is  a  great  phrase 
of  Hegel :  "  Dem  Begriffe  nach  einmal  ist  allemal," 
"In  the  notion  once  is  always,"  and  that  is  a 
saying  on  the  significance  of  which  I  shall  have  to 
dwell  a  good  deal  in  the  course  of  these  lectures. 
My  point  is  just  now  that,  as  all  existence  falls 
within  self-consciousness,  and  as  all  existence 
emerges  within  self-consciousness,  a  thesis  which 
I  developed  at  length  in  the  earlier  course  of 
lectures,  so  self-consciousness  is  not  in  the  nature 
of  a  set  of  abstract  universals,  nor  yet  in  the  nature 
of  any  particular  of  feeling,  but  is  itself  just  an  indi- 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  PROBLEM  13 

vidual  "this,"  the  centre  to  which  all  else  falls, 
unique  and  singular  in  its  character,  and  eternal  in 
the  sense  of  being  that  for  which  time  is.  All  know- 
ledge is  accordingly  nothing  else  in  its  real  nature 
than  the  making  explicit  what  is  implicit.  It  is 
true  that  when  we  think  in  time  distinctions,  as 
the  ends  which  fashion  our  intelligence  force  us 
men  and  women  to  think,  sense  seems  to  come 
first,  and  completed  knowledge  last.  But  when 
you  scrutinise  reflectively  and  more  deeply  the 
nature  of  what  you  there  have,  you  find  that  in  the 
earlier  and  simpler  stages  of  knowledge,  even  in 
the  particulars  of  sense,  there  is  implicit  the  whole 
of  what  comes  into  clear  consciousness  later  on  in 
time,  but  is  in  reality  implied  from  the  first.  That 
is  the  necessary  consequence  of  the  nature  of  self- 
consciousness. 

The  Ultimate  Reality  is  Mind,  and  the  nature 
of  God  cannot  be  less  than  that  of  the  Ultimate 
Reality.  God  must  be  Mind.  Is  He  personal  ? 
What  is  His  relation  to  the  finite  forms  in  which 
self-consciousness  appears,  for  example,  in  man  ? 
These  are  questions  which  I  shall  have  to  consider 
with  you  in  what  follows. 

Well,  I  have  sketched  the  idea  of  the  ten 
lectures  on  which  I  am  now  entering,  and  I  have 
summarised  what  has  already  been  accomplished. 
I  fear  that  many  of  you  have  found  the  pathway  to 
reality,  so  far  as  we  have  yet  trodden  it,  hard  and 
stony.  It  is  beset  with  many  difficulties,  and  in 
the  region  upon  which  we  are  now  entering,  as  we 


14  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

cross  the  borderland,  we  shall  find  the  pathway 
that  lies  before  us  not  less  hard  and  not  less  stony. 
We  have  to  ascend  precipitous  places ;  we  have  to 
go  along  the  very  brink  of  abysses  of  thought ;  but 
yet,  if  we  have  faith  in  the  great  teachers,  the  half- 
dozen  great  teachers  who,  in  the  two  thousand  years 
which  embrace  what  is  greatest  in  the  history  of  the 
human  mind,  have  trodden  the  road  before  us,  we 
shall  find  that  they  have  cut  steps  in  the  rock  which 
are  of  an  enduring  character,  footholds  which  will 
enable  us  to  get  from  point  to  point.  As  the  out- 
come of  their  work,  they  have  left  us  certain  great 
results  which  form  their  common  contribution, 
results  which  they  have  expressed  in  varying 
language,  and  which  are  our  inheritance  and  our 
strength  and  our  guide  in  our  toil. 

I  have  so  far  brought  you  to  a  point  at  which  it 
is  evident  that  what  we  have  to  do  is  to  build  upon 
the  ground  which  we  have  cleared,  to  get  some 
definite  notion  of  the  nature  of  Mind.  For  if  God 
be  the  Ultimate  Reality,  and  if  the  Ultimate 
Reality  be  Mind,  the  problem  with  which  we  have 
to  deal  is  obviously,  What  is  the  nature  of  Mind  ? 
Now  the  great  difficulty  in  lecturing  upon  a  topic 
of  this  kind  is  not  a  difficulty  which  applies  only  to 
the  lecturer.  There  is  a  difficulty  which  rests  with 
the  audience.  There  are  many  of  the  points  in  an 
inquiry  of  this  kind  which  have  not  emerged  in  the 
minds  of  some  of  you,  and  yet,  until  these  points 
emerge,  until  you  become  conscious  that  there  are 
problems  that  have  to  be  solved,  and  realise  the 


NECESSITY  FOE  WONDER  15 

nature  of  these  problems,  it  is  hard  for  you  to  make 
progress.  That  is  why  we  read  a  book  so  much 
better  when  it  deals  with  some  topic  on  which  we 
have  reflected  and  about  which  we  have  much  con- 
cerned ourselves,  until  the  book  has,  so  to  speak, 
come  to  our  rescue.  And  so  it  is  in  the  most  pre- 
eminent degree  with  the  study  of  metaphysics.  It 
seems  barren,  it  seems  in  the  air,  unless  you  have 
realised  the  intensity  of  the  difficulty  with  which 
the  metaphysician  sets  himself  to  grapple,  and  this 
has  always  been  so  in  the  history  of  philosophical 
teaching.  That  is  what  the  Greeks  meant  when 
they  used  to  talk  two  thousand  years  ago  of  wonder 
as  a  necessity  for  the  beginner  in  philosophy.  He 
must  have  learned  to  ponder  over  the  difficulties 
which  beset  him,  and,  before  he  has  learned  that, 
he  must  have  become  conscious  of  these  difficulties. 
And  it  is  not  merely  wonder  as  to  abstract  theory, 
but  it  is  moral  wonder  which  is  essential  in  the 
undertaking.  There  is  a  saying  of  Erdmann  which 
I  will  quote,  making  the  preliminary  observation 
that  it  is  not  until  we  have  passed  a  certain  point 
in  the  evolution  of  the  spiritual  as  well  as  the 
moral  nature  of  man,  that  such  an  inquiry  as  is  the 
subject  of  the  Gifford  Lectures  attains  the  fascina- 
tion that  is  characteristic  of  it.  "  The  task,"  writes 
Erdmann  at  the  beginning  of  his  History  of  Philo- 
sophy, "  of  apprehending  its  own  nature  in  thought 
can  only  tempt  the  human  mind,  and,  indeed,  it  is 
then  only  equal  to  it,  when  it  is  conscious  of  its 
intrinsic  dignity."  We  may  add  that  it  was  only 


16  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L«CT.  i. 

after  Christianity  had  raised  humanity  to  the  full 
consciousness  of  the  infinite  worth  and  importance 
of  the  individual  that  these  inquiries  attained  their 
deepest  meaning,  and  that  the  old  commandment 
"  Know  thyself"  got  its  full  significance. 

Well,  we  have  to  try  to  find  light  upon  a 
problem  that  is  of  supreme  importance  to  all  of  us, 
and  our  conclusions  about  which  must  profoundly 
influence  our  conduct.  I  cannot  undertake  always 
to  succeed  in  using  the  language  which  is  most 
apt,  or  to  be  always  clear  and  lucid.  That  will  be 
partly  my  fault,  but  it  will  be  in  a  yet  greater 
measure  the  fault  of  the  topic  with  which  I  have  to 
deal. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  reproach  often  directed  against 
those  who  speak  about  philosophy  that  their 
language  is  obscure.  The  complaint  is  almost  in- 
variably directed  at  some  supposed  shortcoming  of 
the  speaker.  Those  who  make  it  rarely  pause  to 
ask  whether  it  be  not  possible  that  the  nature  of 
the  subject  is  the  real  reason  of  the  obscurity. 
Philosophy  has  to  deal  with  the  meaning  and  nature 
of  Ultimate  Reality,  and  what  is  ultimate  is  rarely 
easy  to  get  at.  You  and  I  can  readily  see  through 
the  water  of  a  babbling  brook  when  we  cannot  see 
to  the  bottom  of  the  lake  into  which  the  waters 
flow.  If  the  waters  of  philosophic  reflection  had 
resembled  those  of  the  brook  we  should  have  long 
ago  known  what  underlay  them.  Lord  Gifford 
would  not  have  founded  a  Trust;  libraries  would 
not  have  been  filled  with  volumes  of  controversy. 


SOURCES  OF  OBSCURITY  17 

The  obscurity  lies  really  in  the  topic  of  dis- 
course. Feeble  as  may  be  the  capacity  of  the 
lecturer,  it  is  not  his  feebleness  that  is  the  chief 
head  of  offending.  There  have  been  those  who 
have  attempted,  with  the  aid  of  great  gifts  of 
exposition,  to  set  forth  solutions  of  the  problems  of 
metaphysics  in  language  that  was  apparently  clear 
as  noonday.  But  one  after  another  t  .eir  attempts 
have  failed.  The  language  was  clear,  because  it 
was  the  language  of  everyday  life  where  the  prob- 
lems in  question  had  simply  been  ignored.  The 
pictorial  images  of  this  language  were  admirably 
adapted  for  the  display  of  that  which  they  resembled. 
But  the  region  of  philosophy  is  not  a  region  of 
pictorial  images.  Rather,  as  I  showed  you  in  the 
lectures  of  the  last  series,  is  it  a  region  where  such 
similes  and  metaphors  have  sadly  misled  those  who 
have  set  out  on  the  search  after  truth  in  its  deeper 
meaning.  It  is  just  because  it  has  to  get  rid  of  the 
misleading  associations  of  language  which  belongs 
to  a  plane  of  reflection  other  than  that  at  which  it 
has  to  place  itself,  that  philosophy  requires  its  own 
special  and  technical  terminology.  Therein  it 
resembles  mathematics,  physics,  chemistry,  biology, 
and,  indeed,  every  science  which  has  to  try  to  get 
beyond  appearances  to  their  significations.  Why 
these  other  sciences  should  escape  the  reproach  in 
question,  and  philosophy  have  to  encounter  it,  is 
not  apparent.  Yet  the  reproach  against  philosophy 
is  common  even  from  the  lips  of  educated  people. 
"  It  is,"  observes  Hegel  in  the  Introduction  to  the 

B 


18  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

Encyclopaedia,  "the  generally  accepted  view  that 
to  make  a  shoe  requires  study  and  experience, 
notwithstanding  that  every  man  has  a  model  in  the 
shape  of  his  own  foot,  and  has  in  his  hands  the 
natural  instruments  for  the  work  which  he  has  to 
do.  It  is  only  in  the  case  of  philosophy  that  learn- 
ing and  study  and  hard  work  are  taken  to  be 
unnecessary.  This  comfortable  opinion  has,  in 
recent  times,  been  strengthened  by  doctrines  about 
immediate  or  intuitive  knowledge."  Had  Hegel 
lived  to-day  he  would  have  added  to  these  strength- 
ening causes  the  easy  avenues  to  truth,  which  our 
popular  writers  on  science  and  on  theology  seem 
never  to  tire  of  describing. 

But  in  point  of  fact  there  are  no  royal  roads  to 
this  kind  of  learning  any  more  than  to  other  kinds. 
If  philosophy  is  to  be  studied  to  any  purpose,  and 
especially  to  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  student  to 
work  out  his  own  intellectual  salvation,  it  must  be 
studied  in  systematic  form.  The  pathway  is  hard 
and  stony.  Lectures  like  the  present  may  help 
you  over  the  slough  of  preliminary  despond  and 
through  the  wicket  gate.  They  may  lead  you  to  a 
place  from  which  you  may  have  some  view  of  new 
regions.  But  more  than  this  they  cannot  do. 
When  you  reach  these  regions  you  must  pursue 
your  own  way,  and  nothing  short  of  hard  toil  will 
bring  you  any  distance  into  these  unfamiliar  places. 
When  you  get  to  them  the  only  guides  that  can 
help  you  are  the  great  thinkers,  those  who  have 
been  great,  not  merely  in  the  history  of  speculative 


NO  EOYAL  EOAD  19 

philosophy,  but  in  the  history  of  science,  of  litera- 
ture, of  art,  of  religion,  of  all  that  has  raised  the 
intellectual  level  of  mankind.  There  is  no  short 
cut.  There  is  no  epigram  in  which  it  is  practicable 
to  shut  up  what  can  be  set  forth  only  in  a  system. 
The  language,  too,  must  be  language  which  has 
expressions  for  metaphysical  conceptions.  That  is 
why  French  is  a  poor  medium  for  this  kind  of 
science,  and  English  not  very  much  better.  There 
is  a  story  which  is  sometimes  told  of  Cousin  and 
Hegel,  but,  I  think,  it  is  properly  told  of  Madame  de 
Stael  and  Fichte.  The  brilliant  lady  is  said  to  have 
called  on  Fichte  in  Berlin,  and  asked  that  he 
should  sum  up  for  her  his  system  succinctly  and  in 
French.  "  Ces  choses  ne  se  laissent  pas  dire  succincte- 
ment,  surtout  en  franpais,"  is  said  to  have  been 
Fichte's  response. 

But  our  generation  is  not  the  only  one  that  has 
suffered  from  a  widespread  desire  to  take  short 
cuts  in  philosophy.  The  Greeks  had  to  protest 
against  the  same  illusion.  In  the  Seventh  Book  of 
the  Republic,  Glancon  says  to  Socrates,  "  Say  then 
what  is  the  nature  and  what  are  the  divisions  of 
dialectic,  and  what  are  the  paths  which  lead 
thither ;  for  these  paths  will  also  lead  to  our  final 
rest." 

"Dear  Glancon,"  I  said,  "you  will  not  be  able 
to  follow  me  here,  though  I  would  do  my  best,  and 
you  should  behold,  not  an  image  only,  but  the 
absolute  truth,  according  to  my  notion.  Although 
I  am  not  confident  that  I  could  tell  you  the  exact 


20  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [I«T.  ,. 

truth,  I  am  certain  that  you  would  behold  some- 
thing like  the  truth." 

"Doubtless,"  he  replied. 

"But  I  must  add  that  the  power  of  dialectic 
alone  can  reveal  this,  and  only  to  one  who  is  a 
disciple  of  the  previous  sciences." 

"  Of  that  assertion  you  may  be  as  certain  as  of 
the  last." 

"  And  certainly  no  one  will  argue  that  there  is 
any  other  method  or  way  of  comprehending  all  true 
existence ;  for  the  arts  in  general  are  concerned 
with  the  wants  or  opinions  of  men,  or  are  cultivated 
for  the  sake  of  production  and  construction ;  and, 
as  to  the  mathematical  arts  which,  as  we  were 
saying,  have  some  apprehension  of  true  being — 
geometry  and  the  like — they  only  dream  about 
being,  but  never  can  they  behold  the  waking  reality 
so  long  as  they  leave  the  hypotheses  which  they 
use  unexamined,  and  are  unable  to  give  an  account 
of  them.  For  when  a  man  knows  not  his  own  first 
principle,  and  when  the  conclusion  and  intermediate 
steps  are  constructed  out  of  he  knows  not  what, 
how  can  he  imagine  that  such  a  conventional  state- 
ment will  ever  become  science  ? " 

"Impossible,"  he  said. 

"Then  dialectic,  and  dialectic  alone,  goes 
directly  to  the  first  principle,  and  so  the  only 
science  which  does  away  with  hypotheses  in  order 
to  make  certain  of  them ;  the  eye  of  the  soul,  which 
is  literally  buried  in  an  outlandish  slough,  is  by 
her  taught  to  look  upwards ;  and  she  uses  as  hand- 


SOCRATES  AND  DIALECTIC          21 

maids,  in  the  work  of  conversion,  the  sciences  we 
have  been  discussing.  Custom  terms  them  sciences, 
but  they  ought  to  have  some  other  name,  implying 
greater  clearness  than  opinion,  and  less  clearness 
than  science."  .  .  . 

"Dialectic,  then,  as  you  will  agree,  is  the 
coping-stone  of  the  sciences,  and  is  placed  over 
them ;  no  other  science  can  be  placed  higher — the 
nature  of  knowledge  can  no  further  go." 

Glancon  then  asks  who  ought  to  study  dialectic, 
which  in  this  context  means  just  philosophy,  and 
what  qualifications  he  should  have.  Socrates 
replies,  "  Such  gifts  as  keenness  and  ready  powers 
of  acquisition ;  for  the  mind  more  often  faints  from 
the  severity  of  study,  than  from  the  severity  of 
gymnastics."  "Further,  he  of  whom  we  are  in 
search  should  have  a  good  memory,  and  be  an 
unwearied  solid  man  who  is  a  lover  of  labour  in 
any  line,  or  he  will  never  be  able  to  undergo  the 
double  toil  and  trouble  of  body  and  mind.  The 
mistake  at  present  is,  that  those  who  study 
philosophy  have  no  vocation,  and  this,  as  I  was 
saying  before,  is  the  reason  why  she  has  fallen  into 
disrepute ;  her  true  sons  should  study  her,  and  not 
bastards.  Her  votary  should  not  have  a  lame  or  one- 
legged  industry — I  mean  that  he  should  not  be  half 
industrious  and  half  idle  ;  as,  for  example,  when  a 
man  is  a  lover  of  gymnastic  and  hunting  and  all 
other  bodily  exercises,  but  a  hater,  rather  than  a 
lover,  of  the  labour  of  learning,  or  hearing,  or 
inquiring." 


22  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

It  seems,  then,  as  though  it  had  been  recognised 
since  Plato's  time,  that  philosophy  must  remain  the 
most  difficult  of  sciences,  and  as  though  the  fact 
were  one  which  it  were  useless  to  try  to  disguise 
by  using  language  which  lacks  in  precision  and 
meaning,  in  proportion  as  it  gains  in  popularity. 
Such  language  is  no  help  but  rather  a  hindrance. 
It  is  not  really  lucid.  It  is  better  to  keep  boldly 
and  without  apology  to  the  well-worn  terminology, 
clumsy  as  much  of  it  is.  As  Seneca  says :  "  Mira 
in  quibusdam  rebus  verborum  proprietas  est,  et 
consuetude  sermonis  antiqui  qusedam  efficacissimis 
notis  signat."  Bearing  this  in  mind  let  us  once 
more,  before  recommencing  our  journey,  take  stock 
of  our  equipment  for  it. 

I  will  begin  by  summing  up,  in  fresh  language, 
the  conclusion  of  the  first  set  of  lectures.  From 
the  point  at  which  they  concluded  I  have  to  try 
to  carry  you  yet  a  stage  further,  a  stage  which  we 
must  travel  if  we  are  to  get  a  clear  grasp  of  the 
theory,  not  merely  of  knowledge,  but  of  practice. 
And  this  we  cannot  get  unless  we  keep  before  our 
minds  the  result  of  the  analysis  of  Ultimate  Keality. 
That  analysis  brings  us  to  the  conception  of  Mind, 
present  to  itself  in  changing  aspects,  but,  under 
whatever  aspect,  as  the  sole  reality  within  which 
distinctions  fall  and  change  takes  place,  as  singular, 
as  individual,  as  unique,  as  all-embracing. 

Knowledge  is  a  supreme  and  ultimate  fact.  It 
is  not  to  be  explained  as  a  phenomenon  brought 
about  by  physical  and  physiological  causes.  The 


NATURE  OF  KNOWLEDGE  23 

facts  of  physics  and  physiology  arise  through  dis- 
tinctions drawn  in  knowledge.  We  ascend  from 
matter  to  mind  only  to  discover  that  it  was  in  mind 
that  matter  first  of  all  attained  to  meaning  and 
existence. 

The  real  world  within  and  without  me  is  indi- 
vidual, is  always  the  unique,  singular  "this,"  and 
the  individual,  in  which  thought  rests,  is  reality. 
Thought  never  passes  beyond  the  singular,  all- 
containing  fact  of  reality,  however  it  may  transform 
it.  Even  when  I  pronounce  one  fact  in  experience 
to  be  different  from  that  other,  what  I  have  done 
is  to  make  a  distinction  within  the  subject  of  my 
judgment.  The  individual  immediacy  has  been  so 
far  transformed  by  reflection  that  within  it  has  been 
established  a  numerical  distinction,  and  the  true 
individual,  the  subject  to  which  my  next  judgment 
will  attach  a  predicate,  of  which  it  will  proclaim 
a  fresh  "  what,"  is  the  whole  of  that  reality  inside 
which  a  separation  of  a  really  abstract  character 
has  been  established  as  a  qualification  of  the 
original  aspect  of  reality.  If  my  experience  is  of 
myself  as  contrasted  with  what  is  not  self,  in  like 
manner  it  is  within  the  unique,  all-inclusive,  self- 
sustaining  totality  of  the  presentation  by  the  mind 
of  itself  to  itself  that  the  contrast  is  established. 
A  new  aspect  has  emerged,  that  is  all.  Because 
the  individual  of  experience  is  mind,  and  its  nature 
is  to  be  activity,  it  is  never  still,  and  the  only 
fashion  in  which  the  varying  aspects  are  fixed  and 
held  still  is,  as  philosophers  from  the  time  of 


24  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L*cr.  i. 

Heraclitus  to  that  of  Mill  have  pointed  out, 
through  the  abstractions  of  reflection.  So  only  is 
the  system  evolved  in  which  we  must  think  our 
experience — so  only  does  our  Universe  rise  before 
us.  It  Is  not  in  so-called  causes,  but  in  the  ends 
or  purposes  which  the  mind  has  before  it  in  so 
reflecting,  and  in  nothing  short  of  these,  that  the 
reason  is  to  be  sought  of  the  fixity  of  the  appear- 
ance of  the  world  as  it  seems,  and  of  us  as  part  of 
it.  We  are  what  we  are  in  virtue  of  ends  set  before 
it  by  the  Mind  in  which  we  live  and  move  and 
have  our  being.  Therein  lies  the  reason  why  reality 
presents  itself  as  set  in  just  these  and  no  other 
aspects.  With  the  ends  the  aspects  vary.  As 
each  end  is  real  for  mind,  so  does  each  aspect 
equally  belong  to  reality.  If  ends  co-exist,  so  must 
aspects  co-exist.  Every  aspect  of  the  world  as  it 
seems  is  real,  if  and  so  far  as  the  end  which  is 
realised  in  it  is  real.  The  degrees  of  reality  depend 
on  the  relation  of  the  ends.  If  an  end  is  super- 
seded by  a  deeper  purpose,  the  aspect  to  which 
the  former  gave  being  sinks  to  the  level  of  mere 
appearance. 

I  know  how  hard  all  this  is  to  grasp,  and  those 
of  you  who  find  it  unintelligible  I  must  refer  back 
to  the  first  six  of  the  old  lectures,  where  you  have 
it  worked  out  up  to  the  point  to  which  I  now 
come.  This  point  is  that  just  as  when  we  want 
to  find  out  the  nature  of  a  particular  science  and 
the  meaning  of  what  it  teaches,  we  must  inquire 
into  its  method  and  categories,  so  it  is  in  the 


BEAUTY  25 

case  of  practice  also.  If  we  would  know  what 
the  artist  really  says  and  does,  or  the  good  man, 
or  the  godly  man,  we  must  find  out  what  his 
method  is,  and  what  are  his  dominating  con- 
ceptions, and  the  ends  which  move  him  to  act 
under  them.  Beauty,  goodness,  godliness,  are 
all  aspects  in  the  world  as  it  seems,  aspects 
under  which  mind  presents  itself,  aspects  forming 
varying  phases  in  which  its  individuality  discloses 
itself  to  itself  in  what  we  call  experience.  The 
beautiful,  for  example,  is  an  aspect  in  which  experi- 
ence comes  to  us,  an  aspect  which  we  fix  and 
preserve  in  universals  of  reflection.  Can  we  then 
hope  to  be  able  to  resolve  it  into  such  universals  ? 
Certainly  not !  Beauty  is  an  aspect  in  which  reality, 
always  in  form  individual,  discloses  itself,  and  this 
unique  individuality  cannot  be  resolved  into  the 
universals  which  exist  only  in  it  and  are  separated 
out  merely  in  abstraction.  Beauty  is  one  of  the 
forms  in  which  Mind  recognises  itself,  and  it 
belongs  to  the  region  of  fact.  Before  reflection 
had  played  its  part  in  isolating  and  fixing  it,  beauty 
was  without  meaning.  A  pig  or  a  dog  seems  to 
know  nothing  of  beauty.  As  Hegel  has  pointed 
out,  it  is  only  in  so  far  as  we  think  that  we  are 
capable  of  art,  or  morality,  or  religion.  The  extent 
to  which  each  of  us  is  capable  of  appreciating  beauty 
depends  on  our  capacity  for  conceptions  and  for 
the  ends  which  lead  us  to  choose  them.  The  height 
to  which  mankind  in  general  can  rise  in  grasping 
the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  good,  depends  on  what 


26  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

are  the  ends  and  capacity  for  conceptions  of  man- 
kind. That  is  why  the  Universe  appears  as  it  does 
to  us  human  beings,  and  not  otherwise.  The 
limited  character  of  the  ends  which,  in  practice  as 
in  theory,  our  nature  leads  us  to  choose,  divides 
us  not  only  from  God  but  from  the  world  as  it  is 
for  God.  If  we  would  get  as  near  as  we  can  to 
Him  we  must  seek  the  highest  forms  of  which 
human  experience  is  capable.  For  these  will  point 
us  beyond  themselves,  not  to  other  human  forms, 
for  of  these  there  will  be  none  beyond,  but  to  reality 
that  lies  beyond  and  gives  them  deeper  meaning  as 
stages  towards  such  reality.  We  may  be  satisfied  if 
we  find  that,  in  the  light  of  a  deeper  understanding, 
what  has  troubled  us,  what  has  separated  us  from 
God,  has  been  nothing  that  separated  us  wholly 
from  Him,  nothing  with  a  self-subsisting  and  inde- 
pendent nature,  but  a  set  of  distinctions  which  fall 
within  our  own  selves,  which  have  their  hard-and- 
fast  appearance  because  of  our  mental  and  spiritual 
limits,  and  which,  whether  they  assume  the  aspect 
of  our  weakness  or  that  of  the  grave  that  closes 
on  us,  are  but  appearance  relatively  to  the  reality 
which  comprehension  of  the  deeper  meaning  dis- 
closes. In  the  Ultimate  Reality  such  appearances 
can  be  but  transient,  and  it  is  only  the  finiteness  of 
our  powers  of  reflection  that  has  made  us  fix  them 
into  a  system  from  which  we  see  no  escape.  This 
system  is  the  system  of  what  we  call  the  actual. 
What  is  actual  is  experience.  Experience  is  neither 
the  universal  nor  the  particular,  but  the  combination 


THOUGHT  AND  FEELING  27 

of  the  two  in  the  individual  presentation.  Presenta- 
tion gives  us  the  actual.  Now  in  presentation,  and 
therefore  in  the  actual,  the  transforming  work  of 
reflection,  without  which  the  individual  presentation 
cannot  be  fixed  for  thought,  operates  in  varying 
degrees.  At  times,  as  when  we  see  colour  or  feel 
pleasure,  the  particular  element  of  sensation  pre- 
dominates. At  other  times,  as  when  we  recognise 
as  facts  confronting  us  the  institutions  of  the  family 
or  the  state,  the  element  of  sense  recedes,  and 
what  gives  its  meaning  to  reality  is  the  domi- 
nating conception.  Objectivity  is  here  very  plainly 
what  we  are  forced  to  think.  It  is  the  feeling 
which  is  highly  qualified  through  reflection  that 
binds  the  parent  to  the  child,  and  the  citizen  to  the 
state.  A  family  and  a  state  may  be  objects  in 
experience,  actual  individuals  in  direct  presentation, 
but  it  is  only  for  a  thinking  being  that  they  are  so. 
For  a  low  type  of  intelligence  and  among  low  types 
of  intelligence  they  are  meaningless  and  do  not 
exist.  A  cow  may  conceivably  have  some  sort  of 
self-consciousness,  but  watch  the  expression  of  its 
face  and  you  will  readily  satisfy  yourself  that  it  has 
no  religion,  no  sense  of  citizenship.  The  higher  the 
capacity  for  thought,  the  wider  the  limits  of  what  is 
actual,  and  the  more  apparently  is  it  rational. 

There  appears  to  be  also  a  varying  limit  at  the 
other  boundary,  in  the  region  of  feeling.  The 
capacity  of  our  senses,  the  field  of  consciousness, 
may  be  much  enlarged  by  sufficient  suggestion  to 
the  subliminal  self.  Many  of  the  phenomena  of 


28  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L«cr.  i. 

hypnotism  illustrate  this.  Such  experiences  as 
those  of  telepathy  and  thought-reading  seem  to 
depend  on  the  relaxation  of  the  normal  inhibitions 
which  restrain  the  capacity  of  the  self  for  sensation. 
Yet  the  records  of  these  phenomena  and  the  little 
they  assist  us  towards  knowledge  of  the  higher 
kinds,  strikingly  suggest  that  what  we  are  over- 
stepping is  only  the  lower  limit  of  feeling,  within 
which  the  normal  inhibitions  of  the  self  confine  it, 
and  not  the  upper  limit  of  capacity  to  think.  It  is 
the  shortcoming  of  mysticism  that  it  takes  feeling 
as  such,  with  its  barrenness  of  intellectual  effort,  to 
be  sufficient  as  a  form  of  reality.  The  strength  of 
mysticism  is  its  directly  present  particular  of  feel- 
ing. But  this  yields  at  best  but  the  emotion  which 
is  no  guide  to  truth,  which  has  no  basis  in  reflec- 
tion or  justification  in  reason.  Mysticism  has  the 
defects  of  its  qualities.  Its  power  lies  in  its 
simplicity,  the  readiness  to  hand  of  its  material. 
But  valuable  as  is  the  sense  of  reality  which  that 
material  brings,  it  is  wanting  in  the  depth  and 
solidity  which  only  a  systematic  form  can  give. 
And  a  systematic  form  can  be  the  outcome  of 
reason  alone.  The  great  fact  of  family  life  has 
its  foundation  in  passion,  passion  transfigured,  but 
yet  in  its  origin  sexual  and  sensual.  It  develops 
on  a  basis  that  is  largely  one  of  feeling  and  of 
instinct.  But  its  deeper  meaning,  the  form  which 
pervades  and  moulds  it,  is  one  which  depends  upon 
a  dominating  end  and  conception,  the  organisation 
of  the  family  in  which  parents  and  children  alike 


KELATIVITY  29 

realise  their  lives  in  a  social  whole  that  is  itself 
individual,  as  real  as  the  individuals  which  are  the 
members,  as  real  as  the  cells  for  which  the  body 
forms  the  organic  whole.  To  the  eye  which 
possesses  sight,  as  well  as  to  the  eye  of  faith,  the 
family  is  just  as  real  a  phenomenon  as  is  the  human 
body.  Both  are  directly  presented.  When  I  say 
that  I  have  met  the  Fairchild  family,  I  mean  some- 
thing that  I  have  seen,  and  not  a  mere  succession 
or  group  of  particular  people.  In  the  same  way, 
when  I  say  I  have  seen  a  living  body,  I  mean  more 
than  a  mere  aggregate  of  cells.  It  is  only  relatively 
that  the  one  is  less  directly  presented  than  the 
other.  The  senses  of  a  gnat  might  see  in  a  human 
body  only  an  aggregate  of  cells  appearing  to  work 
in  mechanical  harmony  of  purpose.  The  coarse 
senses  of  the  inhabitants  of  Brobdignag,  directed 
upon  Lilliput,  might  find  the  family  more  difficult  to 
break  up  into  its  constituent  members  than  a  gnat 
may  find  the  human  body.  Here,  as  in  an  infinity 
of  other  instances,  the  distinctions  which  occur  in 
the  field  of  perception,  and  which  separate  what 
appears  as  immediately  given  from  what  appears 
otherwise,  depend  on  our  particular  measure  of 
space  and  time.  There  is  no  hard-and-fast  line  of 
demarcation  between  what  is  directly  and  what  is 
indirectly  given.  Nevertheless,  there  is  for  each  of 
us  a  practical  working  line.  Taking  two  pheno- 
mena, both  of  which  lie  on  one  side  of  it,  the  human 
family  and  the  human  body,  while  both  are  pre- 
sented directly,  they  are  presented  with  differing 


30  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L*CT.  i. 

degrees  of  distinctness.  The  former  owes  most  to 
reflection,  the  latter  most  to  sense,  for  beings  at  the 
same  plane  of  intelligence. 

There  comes,  indeed,  not  a  definite  point,  for 
that  never  comes,  but  a  region  where  we  get  from 
feeling  the  merest  with  which  we  start,  to  abstract 
universals  of  reflection  which  are  never  themselves 
presented  as  individual  wholes,  or  as  single  or  unique 
facts  of  experience.  Such,  as  we  saw  before,  are 
atoms  and  energy  at  the  one  end  of  the  scale,  and  the 
Universe  as  a  totality  at  the  other  end.  Such  are 
the  past  and  the  future  by  contrast  with  which  the 
present  is  made  definite  in  reflection.  We  become 
conscious  even  of  our  limits  as  individuals,  and  we 
thereby  transcend  them,  by  contrasting  our  presenta- 
tion of  ourselves  as  objects  for  ourselves  with  what 
we  can  construct  in  thought,  but  cannot  directly 
experience.  That  which  is  so  constructed  is  con- 
structed abstractly,  in  universals  only.  Never  does 
it  present  for  us  the  universal  combining  with  the 
particular  to  form  the  fact  that  is  individual,  unless, 
indeed,  our  inhibitions  have  been  in  some  fashion 
and  measure  removed,  and  the  region  within  which 
our  faculty  of  presentation  is  confined  has  been  ex- 
tended. Why  we  are  limited  as  we  are  we  cannot 
tell  further  than  this,  that  it  is  in  virtue  of  our 
occupying  just  this  definite  plane  in  the  self-com- 
prehension of  the  absolute  mind  which  is  the  founda- 
tion and  final  form  of  our  reality.  The  ends  which 
are  in  course  of  realising  themselves,  and  in  the 
self-realisation  of  which  the  plane  of  our  intelligence 


RELATIVITY  31 

is  a  stage,  are  ends  which  our  finite  methods  always 
hold  out  as  lying  beyond  us,  as  to  be  reached  by 
inference  only,  and  when  we  do  reach  them  thus 
inferentially  we  can  describe  what  we  reach  only 
in  either  the  abstract  universals  of  speculative 
philosophy,  or  halting  metaphors  drawn  from  a 
lower  sphere.  We  are  what  we  are,  and  it  is  only 
at  a  level  of  intelligence  that  is  incrusted  with 
limitations  arising  from  the  finiteness  of  the  pur- 
poses of  our  everyday  life  as  men  and  women,  that 
we  reason  at  all.  And  yet  reason  takes  us  beyond 
ourselves,  and  in  the  highest  phases  of  human  self- 
consciousness  tells  us  of  much  that  lies  beyond. 
Could  we  directly  view  the  Universe  sub  specie 
ceternitatis  we  should  see  beyond  these  limits. 
But  if  we  could  so  view  we  should  have  become  as 
God  is. 

Such  is  the  conception,  to  which  philosophy 
seems  to  have  brought  man,  of  the  inmost  nature 
of  the  content  of  his  self-consciousness,  of  the  world 
as  it  seems.  That  world  lies  between  two  limits, 
neither  of  which  is,  for  man,  reality.  At  the  one 
extreme  is  what  comes  earliest  in  the  time-history 
of  our  intelligence — feeling,  feeling  that  cannot  be 
defined,  that  is  but  material  for  the  activity  of  in- 
telligence to  further  fashion  into  the  individual  of 
sense.  At  the  other  extreme  is  what  seems  to  be 
a  sphere  of  mere  reflection,  the  creatures  of  which 
exist  only  for  abstract  thought.  Between  these 
two  limits  lies  the  individual  world  of  reality,  never 
still  and  ever  self- transforming,  just  because  its 


32  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [!**.  i. 

reality  is  mind  the  essence  of  which  is  spontaneous 
and  self- originating  activity.  The  aspects  under 
which  this  world  discloses  itself  vary  in  character 
according  as  they  approach  to  the  one  limit  or  the 
other.  But  just  because  they  are  not  self- subsist- 
ing things,  numerically  distinct,  like  marbles  in  a 
heap,  but  are  aspects  under  which  the  real  presents 
itself,  they  fall  actually  or  potentially  within  the 
complex  standpoint  of  human  experience.  Every 
phase  of  the  world  as  it  seems  is  real,  though 
relatively  to  each  other  these  phases  are  graded 
and  possess  degrees  of  reality.  In  the  next  five 
lectures  we  shall  try  to  see  something  of  their 
nature  in  such  detail  as  space  permits.  To  set  out 
that  nature  fully  would  require  a  book  no  less 
great  than  the  entire  book  of  Life.  But  the  out- 
lines must  disclose  themselves,  if  the  task  of  these 
lectures  is  to  be  accomplished.  It  is  for  Philosophy 
to  pursue  her  narrow  path  to  the  summit,  and  there 
to  join  hands  with  Art,  and  Morality,  and  Religion. 
The  accomplishment  of  this  is  for  her  the  test  of 
success.  It  is  only  when  he  finds  that  the  world 
as  it  seems  to  the  artist,  to  the  good  man,  to  the 
godly  man,  seems  real  to  him  also,  that  the  philo- 
sopher has  done  his  work. 

In  the  first  and  second  books  of  these  lectures 
I  showed  you  how  the  various  ends  after  which 
knowledge  in  its  different  forms  is  striving,  trans- 
form the  real  world.  I  carried  the  account  down 
to  the  process  of  selective  attention  in  the  conscious 
human  being.  Now,  just  as  in  our  consciousness 


ENDS  IN  THE  SPHERE  OF  PRACTICE  33 

the  appearance  of  our  world  is  determined  by  our 
ends,  so  are  we  determined  in  our  characters  and 
actions  as  individuals  by  the  ends  which  we  seek 
to  realise.  The  artist,  the  good  man,  the  religious 
man,  are  what  they  are  in  virtue  of  the  purposes 
which  are  constantly  being  embodied  in  their 
practice.  On  the  distinction  between  these  pur- 
poses depends  the  distinction  between  the  worlds 
of  these  men.  Just  as  when  we  know,  what  we 
know  is  fashioned  by  the  conceptions  under  which 
we  have  organised  our  knowledge,  so,  when  we 
act,  what  we  do  takes  its  character  and  significance 
from  the  ends  which  we  have  striven  to  realise  in 
our  actions. 

Mind  which  is  free  in  its  choice  acts  under  con- 
ceptions which  it  freely  chooses,  just  as  it  reflects 
under  such  conceptions.  "  By  their  works  ye  shall 
know  them."  It  is  in  works  that  Faith  attains  to 
life.  It  is  in  action  that  the  spirit  realises  itself. 
In  such  action  man  may  be  an  intelligent  being  as 
completely  as  in  his  thinking.  Just  in  so  far  as 
his  action  is  the  embodiment  of  thought  does  it 
disclose  itself  as  the  individual  in  which  reality  is 
attained  in  the  union  of  what  is  universal,  so  long 
as  it  remains  in  the  region  of  mere  purpose,  with 
what  is  particular  in  the  concrete  execution  of  that 
purpose.  Conduct  which  is  moral  embodies  both 
end  and  means.  It  is  not  the  having  an  idea  that 
is  wrong,  it  is  the  giving  effect  to  it,  even  if  such 
giving  effect  assumes  only  the  form  of  allowing  the 

mind  to  dwell  on  it 

c 


34  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L»CT.  lm 

It  is  of  the  nature  of  man  as  a  thinking  being 
to  realise  himself  in  a  twofold  fashion.  The  first  of 
these  fashions  is  theoretical.  He  seeks  to  organise 
the  world  of  experience,  as  we  saw  in  the  first  series 
of  lectures,  under  conceptions  in  such  a  fashion  as 
in  the  end  to  abolish  its  foreignness.  He  endeavours 
to  find  its  reality  in  the  law,  which  lies  behind  and 
gives  meaning  to  phenomena,  by  dragging  to  light 
the  universal  which  gives  the  individual  its  meaning 
and  existence,  and  enables  the  mind  to  find  itself 
even  in  the  apparent  externality  of  nature.  The 
second  fashion  is  that  in  which  he  alters  his 
surroundings  by  what  he  does,  and  so  stamps  on 
them  the  impression  of  his  personality.  He  may 
do  this  by  making  his  surroundings,  including  his 
fellow-men,  subordinate  to  his  purpose  of  accumu- 
lating riches.  He  does  it  when  he  turns  the 
material  that  is  to  his  hand  into  clothes  for  himself, 
or  makes  others  clothe  him.  Or  he  may  do  it,  as 
the  artist  does,  by  making  marble,  or  colour,  or 
musical  sound,  or  language  the  medium  in  which 
his  self  bodies  itself  forth.  In  all  such  cases  the 
essential  feature  which  gives  its  character  to  reality 
is  the  embodiment  of  purpose,  the  realisation  of 
mind  in  the  transformation  of  its  material,  its 
object  world,  into  forms  which  are  its  own.  In 
practice  as  in  theory  the  task  of  mind  is  to 
find  itself.  In  practice  as  in  theory  the  com- 
pleteness with  which  this  is  done  depends  on  the 
capacity  for  thinking.  It  is,  therefore,  in  their 
purposes,  or  the  ends  which  they  seek  to  realise, 


THE  ARTIST  35 

that  the  distinctions  between  the  various  forms  of 
practical  activity  must  be  sought.  And  these 
purposes  or  ends  must  be  investigated,  and  their 
relations  to  each  other  established,  by  reference  to 
the  conceptions  which  govern  them.  In  the  world 
of  action,  no  less  than  in  the  world  of  science,  a 
criticism  of  categories  is  essential  for  clear  know- 
ledge. 

We  have  an  illustration  of  this  truth  in  Art. 
The  artist  is  essentially  practical.  What  he  wills 
and  what  he  accomplishes  is  just  a  transformation 
of  experience.  His  mastery  over  the  sensuous 
forms,  whether  of  sound,  or  of  outline  and  colour, 
or  of  bronze  and  marble,  or  of  language,  enables 
him  to  set  individual  reality  before  us  in  new 
aspects.  In  these  aspects  we  have  the  work  of  his 
will.  He  gives  us  an  experience  which  he  has 
himself  fashioned,  and  its  importance  is  that  in  it 
he  enables  us  to  have  before  us  the  individual  as  it 
is  presented  at  the  plane  of  his  own  mind.  A  scene 
in  nature  has  in  it  an  infinity  of  detail  which  is  far 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  brush,  even  of  a  Turner. 
But  the  artist  does  not  copy  nature.  He  presents 
nature  as  he  has  comprehended  and  set  it  in  his 
own  mind,  and  thereby  he  lifts  us  for  the  moment 
to  his  own  level,  a  level  at  which  the  greatness  of 
his  mind  becomes  apparent  to  us. 

Again,  in  a  moral  action  we  are  conscious,  as 
before  us,  of  a  plane  of  purpose  which  goes  beyond 
that  of  the  brute — purpose,  it  may  be,  which  goes 
beyond  that  of  the  brute  just  in  so  far  as  it  inspires 


36  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

man  to  act  on  the  footing  of  being  more  than  a 
mere  isolated  and  self-regarding  individual,  and  as 
finding  reality  in  a  social  whole  of  which  he  is  a 
member. 

So  again  in  religion  attention  is  concentrated 
on  the  relation  of  man  to  God,  and  the  religious 
man  is  he  whose  will  is  constantly  striving  to  give 
effect  to  purposes  which  are  fashioned  by  this 
relationship.  It  is  the  old  problem  that  confronts 
us,  the  problem  of  how  the  various  aspects  of  life  as 
it  seems  stand  to  one  another.  Just  as  in  the 
earlier  lectures  I  had,  after  defining  the  nature  of 
Ultimate  Reality,  to  set  forth  its  phases  as  they 
appeared  in  the  various  sciences,  so,  later  on,  I 
shall  have  to  try  to  touch  upon  its  phases  as  they 
appear  in  the  region  of  practice.  But,  as  was 
pointed  out  in  the  tenth  of  the  earlier  lectures,  the 
distinction  between  theory  and  practice  is  only  a 
relative  one,  and  its  importance  becomes  less  the 
deeper  we  penetrate  into  the  meaning  and  nature 
of  reality.  For  certain  practical  purposes  we 
contrast  thinking  and  willing,  knowing  and  being. 
But  the  contrast  exists  for  practical  purposes  only. 
That  is  to  say,  in  thought  as  in  action,  the  essence 
of  what  we  do  is  to  alter  the  individual  fact  of 
experience  from  which  we  start  by  giving  it  a  new 
form,  by  introducing  through  the  judgment,  of 
which,  in  practice  as  well  as  theory,  it  is  always  the 
subject,  a  new  qualification  within  its  limits. 

The  task  of  philosophy,  in  this  stage  of  the 
search  after  truth,  is  to  express  in  language  which 


THE  TASK  OF  PHILOSOPHY         37 

is  as  nearly  as  possible  scientific  what  is  implicitly 
present  to  the  mind  that  reflects,  but  has  been 
obscured  by  the  incrustations  that  arise  from 
habitual  immersion  in  the  language  and  metaphors 
of  a  lower  plane.  Even  at  that  lower  plane  the 
man  of  the  world  finds  himself  confronted  by  :— 

"Those  obstinate  questionings 
Of  sense  and  outward  things, 
Fallings  from  us,  vanishings, 
Blank  misgivings  of  a  Creature, 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realised, 
High  instincts  before  which  our  mortal  nature 
Did  tremble  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised. 
But  for  those  first  affections, 
Those  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 
Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing, 
Uphold  us,  cherish,  and  have  power  to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  that  eternal  Silence  ;  truths  that  wake, 
To  perish  never  ; 

Which  neither  listlessness,  nor  rude  endeavour, 
Nor  man  nor  boy,  nor  all  that  is  at  enmity  with  joy, 
Can  utterly  abolish  or  destroy." 

Deep  down  in  the  hearts  and  brains  of  even 
those  who  seem  to  be  most  of  all  of  the  earth  earthy, 
lie  the  impulses  that  make  them  men  and  women  in 
a  higher  sense  than  any  they  express  in  words. 
In  the  surroundings  that  have  slowly  but  surely 
grown  up  about  us,  in  the  manifestations  of  our 
corporate  life  as  a  nation,  in  the  institutions  with- 
out which  no  race  of  human  beings  counts  itself 
civilised,  we  have  the  intimations  of  the  existence 
that  is  more  than  one  of  rivalry  in  the  assertion  of 


73 


38  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LK*.  i. 

the  individual  will  to  live.  The  picture  galleries, 
the  schools,  the  hospitals,  the  Courts  of  Justice, 
the  Parliament  Houses,  these  and  the  like  bear 
witness  to  the  larger  meaning  of  the  life  that  is 
ours,  and  the  deeper  meaning  that  gives  form  to  its 
experience.  It  is  the  Mind  which  is  the  foundation 
of  that  experience,  and  the  various  forms  which 
that  experience  assumes  under  control  by  categories 
of  thought  which  we  have  not  yet  examined,  that 
must  be  the  subject  of  the  next  five  lectures. 


LECTURE  II 

TO-DAY  I  have  to  start  from  the  position  that  the 
Ultimate  Reality  is  mind,  and  I  have  to  ask  you 
to  go  with  me  in  an  investigation  of  what  the 
nature  of  mind  is.  Now  this  is  perhaps  the  very 
hardest  part  of  our  task,  and  this  lecture  may  prove 
the  most  difficult  to  follow.  But  it  is  a  part  of  the 
undertaking  which  must  be  faced,  and  through 
which  I  must  carry  you  as  well  as  I  can.  Let  us 
try  to  get  together  our  materials,  and  let  us  begin 
by  doing,  what  is  always  a  useful  thing  when  you 
want  to  find  the  meaning  of  a  word,  by  trying  to 
see  what  mind  is  not.  Now  mind  is  not — this  is 
perfectly  clear  if  the  reasoning  up  to  this  stage  be 
right — a  thing.  It  is  not  a  thing  that  is  somewhere 
in  the  brain  and  is  worked  by  the  nerves  or  works 
the  nerves.  It  is  nothing  with  a  locality,  because 
it  is  that  to  which  everything,  not  excepting  the 
forms  of  space  and  time,  presents  itself.  If  we 
were  to  assume  that  mind  was  a  thing  having  a 
locality  in  space  and  a  place  in  time  we  should  be 
driven  to  one  of  two  conclusions.  We  should 
either  end  in  materialism,  or,  at  the  other  extreme, 
we  should  fall  into  what  is  even  more  difficult  to 


40  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  n. 

get  out  of  than  materialism,  that  which  is  called 
solipsism,  the  doctrine  that  existence  is  merely  the 
being  a  set  of  the  impressions  or  ideas  of  a  par- 
ticular individual  object  called  the  self.  Bishop 
Berkeley,  as  Hume  afterwards  showed,  got  very 
near  to  this  position.  For  him  the  mind  was  some- 
thing which  was  acted  upon  by  God,  a  mechanical 
God  really,  who  operated  upon  it  ab  extra,  and 
produced  the  impressions  which  made  up  the 
Universe  of  which  the  self  was  conscious.  Well, 
it  is  clear  that  mind  cannot  be  a  thing  with  a  locality 
in  space  and  time. 

Again  an  equally  imperfect  account  of  it  is  to 
describe  it  as  a  subject  with  an  object  of  a  foreign 
nature  confronting  it.  By  an  object  of  a  foreign 
nature  I  mean  an  object  which  does  not  fall 
within  the  mind  itself.  If  you  take  that  point  of 
view,  you  will  find  it  wholly  impossible  to  explain 
how  mind  and  its  object  ever  get  together,  or  how 
the  object  can  have  any  meaning  excepting  in 
virtue  of  distinctions  which  obviously  are  the  work 
of  the  mind  itself.  The  characteristic  of  the  mind 
is  to  be  self-conscious,  is  to  be  active,  is  to  be  more 
like  a  life  than  like  an  inert  substance.  Its  nature 
is  self-conscious  activity,  and  it  is  within  that 
activity  that  all  that  is  and  all  that  can  be  falls. 

Now,  another  misapprehension  which  we  have 
to  avoid  is  the  exclusive  identification  of  mind  with 
any  particular  phase  of  mind,  for  instance,  feeling. 
It  is  only  by  abstraction  that  feeling  is  put  on  one 
side  and  thought  is  put  on  the  other.  Mind  is  just 


THE  NATUKE  OF  MIND  41 

as  much  feeling  as  it  is  thought,  and  it  is  just  as 
much  thought  as  it  is  feeling,  because  thought  and 
feeling,  as  here  distinguished,  are  merely  two  of  the 
aspects  in  which  the  living  self-conscious  individual 
mind  manifests  itself  as  activity.  It  is  in  reflection 
only  and  for  purposes  that  are  special  that  we 
break  up  the  activity  in  which  mind  consists, 
activity  that  is  final  and  ultimate,  into  the  con- 
trasted aspects  of  the  discursive  thought  which 
relates  terms,  and  the  supposed  immediacy  of 
particular  feeling.  Idealism  has  been  brought  at 
times  into  disrepute  by  want  of  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  distinction  is  an  artificial  one. 

Now  we  come  to  another  point.  All  the 
phenomena  which  are  before  the  mind  appear 
before  it  as  successive  and  so  in  time,  and  many  of 
them  appear  also  as  in  space.  But  it  is  plain  that 
these  phenomena  present  that  aspect  only  for  the 
mind.  In  our  everyday  conversation  we  ignore  the 
relation  of  the  mind  as  subject  to  its  object.  We 
speak  of  the  object  world  as  if  it  were  something 
self-subsisting,  and  that  is  how  we  come  to  talk  of 
time  and  space  as  if  they  were  self- subsisting  and 
finite  forms  of  reality.  It  is  quite  right  that  we 
should  do  that  for  everyday  practical  purposes. 
You  and  I  live  in  this  world,  and  we  have  to  deal  with 
each  other  as  human  beings,  as  citizens  of  a  state, 
as  members  of  a  family,  as  lecturer  and  audience. 
In  these  relations  we  have  to  contemplate  ourselves 
from  a  standpoint  where  it  is  necessary  to  make 
clear  the  distinction  between  our  personalities,  and 


42  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  n. 

so  it  is  that  for  social  purposes  we  come  to  make 
distinctions  which  lead  us  to  treat  ourselves  as  if  we 
were  so  many  different  minds  and  so  many  different 
living  things.  That  is  a  standpoint  which  represents 
truth,  measured  by  the  purposes  which  we  have  in 
view,  but  it  is  not  a  standpoint  from  which  the  final 
word  can  be  said  about  the  nature  of  reality.  The 
phenomena  of  the  mind  are  phenomena  which  are 
there  for  the  mind,  and  the  general  relations  in 
which  they  appear,  space  and  time,  are  just  rela- 
tions of  what  comes  before  the  mind,  and  are 
therefore  themselves  distinctions  which  the  mind 
itself  makes,  and  which  exist  only  in  so  far  as  the 
mind  presents  things  to  itself. 

Now,  to  some  extent  we  see  that  this  is  so  when 
we  look  at  even  very  familiar  illustrations.  What 
is  called  the  "  tempo  "  of  different  kinds  of  mind, 
the  measure  of  time,  is  different.  We  can  conceive 
beings  for  whom  a  thousand  years  is  as  one  day, 
and  beings  for  whom  one  day  is  as  a  thousand  years. 
Take  an  animal  with  very  fine  senses ;  for  example, 
a  gnat  in  all  probability  possesses  such  senses.  To 
a  gnat  an  explosion  may  seem  to  occupy  a  definite 
time,  whereas  to  a  creature  with  a  less  finely 
organised  sense  of  hearing  the  explosion  may  seem 
to  occupy  but  an  instant.  There  are  some  in- 
genious calculations  by  Von  Baer  on  the  effect  of 
differences  in  the  amount  of  duration  felt,  and  in 
the  fineness  of  the  events  that  may  fill  it.  If  we 
were  able,  within  the  length  of  a  second,  to  note 
ten  thousand  events  distinctly  instead  of  ten  as 


BELATIVITY  OF  KNOWLEDGE        43 

now;  if  our  life  were  then  destined  to  hold  the 
same  number  of  impressions,  it  might  be  one  thou- 
sand times  as  short.  We  should  live  less  than  a 
month,  and  personally  know  nothing  of  the  change 
of  seasons.  If  born  in  winter,  we  should  believe 
in  summer  as  we  now  believe  in  the  heats  of  our 
carboniferous  era.  The  motions  of  organic  beings 
would  be  so  slow  to  our  senses  as  to  be  inferred, 
not  seen.  The  sun  would  stand  still  in  the  sky, 
the  moon  be  almost  free  from  change,  and  so  on. 
And  now  reverse  the  hypothesis,  and  suppose  a 
being  to  get  only  1000th  part  of  the  sensations 
that  we  get  in  a  given  time,  and  consequently 
to  live  1000th  times  as  long.  Winters  and 
summers  will  be  to  him  like  quarters  of  an  hour. 
Mushrooms  and  the  swifter  growing  plants  will  shoot 
into  being  so  rapidly  as  to  appear  instantaneous 
creations ;  annual  shrubs  will  rise  and  fall  from  the 
earth  like  restlessly  boiling  water  springs ;  the 
motions  of  animals  will  be  as  invisible  as  are  to  us 
the  movements  of  bullets  and  cannon  balls ;  the 
sun  will  scour  through  the  sky  like  *a  meteor, 
leaving  a  fiery  trail  behind  him.* 

Now  I  come  to  another  point.  If  time  be  a 
relation  in  which  things  are  presented  for  the  mind, 
if  it  be,  as  it  were,  just  the  form  of  such  presenta- 
tion, then  thought  must  take  account  of  another 
relation  in  which  the  contents  of  the  mind  stand  to 
one  another.  It  is  conceivable,  for  instance,  that 
what  is  first  in  time  may,  in  a  deeper  view  of 

*  See  James'  Principles  of  Psychology,  vol.   i.,  p.  639. 


44  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  n. 

reality,  become  logically  last,  and  conversely  that 
what  is  logically  last  may  become,  in  the  deeper 
sense,  first  in  time.  Take  the  notion  of  the  mind 
in  comprehending  phenomena  as  successive.  One 
phenomenon  comes  after  another,  and  we  trace  the 
connection,  and  if  we  are  psychologists  we  trace 
the  succession  of  forms  back  to  their  origin  as 
suggestions  of  the  senses  and  as  constructions  of 
the  intelligence.  But  it  is  plain  that,  although  in 
this  way  we  get  last  of  all  to  the  mind,  the  mind 
must  have  been  presupposed  as  the  very  condition 
without  which  that  succession  of  phenomena,  which 
are  there  as  its  object,  could  not  have  taken  place. 
Our  very  psychological  analysis  leads  us  to  see  that 
the  mind  must  be  presupposed  before  there  can  be 
any  possibility  of  such  succession  ;  and,  therefore,  in 
the  deeper  meaning  of  things,  in  the  fuller  view 
of  truth,  the  mind  must  come  logically  first,  although 
it  is  reached  last  as  a  presentation  in  the  psycho- 
logical analysis  which  only  takes  account  of  the 
history  in  time.  In  that  way  there  comes  to  be  a 
fuller  view,  of  things,  and  a  view  of  things  in  which 
we  see  mind  as  the  ultimate  truth,  and  the  ultimate 
truth  in  the  sense  that  things  presuppose  mind 
instead  of  mind  presupposing  things.  If  the  activity 
of  thought  be  the  condition  without  which  it  is 
impossible  to  attach  any  meaning  to  the  notion  of  the 
object  world  of  phenomena,  presented  as  arranged 
in  space  and  as  successive  in  time,  then  mind  must 
be  logically  first,  whatever  the  nature  of  the  time 
series,  and  the  final  view  of  things  must  be  the 


ILLUSTRATION  FBOM  CARLYLE     45 

view  in  which  they  owe  the  very  meaning  of  their 
reality  to  the  mind. 

In  the  course  of  these  lectures  I  have  tried  from 
time  to  time  to  illustrate  to  you  metaphysical  truths 
from  the  insight — and  often  it  is  very  great — of  the 
poets  and  the  artists,  and  I  have  quoted  to  you 
various  illustrations  of  how  the  poets  in  particular 
have  seen,  as  it  were  by  an  intuition  of  genius,  into 
the  very  metaphysical  conclusions  which  we  have 
been  straining  after  with  so  much  difficulty.  This 
is  true  of  the  topic  with  which  I  am  now  engaged. 
I  am  going  to  quote  to  you,  not  a  poet  in  the  tech- 
nical sense,  but  one  who  was  a  poet  in  a  very  real 
sense,  I  mean  Carlyle.  In  Sartor  Resartus,  in  his 
chapter  on  "  Clothes,"  Carlyle  makes  Teufelsdrockh 
say  : — "  With  men  of  a  speculative  turn  there  come 
seasons,  meditative,  sweet,  yet  awful  hours,  when 
in  wonder  and  fear  you  ask  yourself  that  unanswer- 
able question :  Who  am  I ;  the  thing  that  can  say 
' 1 '  (Das  Wesen  das  sick  Ich  nennt)  ?  The  world 
with  its  loud  trafficking  retires  into  the  distance ; 
and  through  the  paper-hangings  and  stone  walls, 
and  thick  plied  tissues  of  Commerce  and  Polity, 
and  all  the  living  and  lifeless  integuments  (of 
Society  and  a  Body)  wherewith  your  existence  sits 
surrounded — the  sight  reaches  forth  into  the  void 
Deep,  and  you  are  alone  with  the  Universe,  and 
commune  with  it,  as  one  mysterious  Presence  with 
another." 

"  Who  am  I ;  what  is  this  Me !  A  Voice,  a 
Motion,  an  Appearance ; — some  embodied  visualised 


46  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKCT.  n. 

Idea  in  the  Eternal  Mind  ?  Cogito  ergo  sum.  .  .  . 
Has  not  a  deeper  meditation  taught  certain,  of 
every  climate  and  age,  that  the  Where  and  the 
When,  so  mysteriously  inseparable  from  all  our 
thoughts,  are  but  superficial  terrestrial  adhesions 
to  thought ;  that  the  Seer  may  discern  them  where 
they  mount  up  out  of  the  celestial  Everywhere  and 
Forever ;  have  not  all  nations  conceived  their  God 
as  Omnipresent  and  Eternal ;  as  existing  in  a 
universal  Here  and  everlasting  Now?  I  think, 
well,  thou  too  wilt  find  that  Space  is  but  a  mode 
of  an  human  sense,  so  likewise  Time ;  there  is  no 
Space  and  no  Time ;  we  are — we  know  not  what ; 
— like  sparkles  floating  in  the  aether  of  Deity. 

"  So  that  this  so  solid-seeming  World,  after  all, 
were  but  an  air  image,  our  Me  the  only  reality; 
and  nature,  with  its  thousand-fold  production  and 
destruction,  but  the  reflex  of  our  own  inward  Force, 
the  '  phantasy  of  our  Dream ' ;  or  what  the  Earth 
Spirit  in  Faust  names  it,  the  living  visible  Garment 
of  God: 

( In  Beings  floods,  in  Actions  storm 
I  walk  and  work,  above,  beneath, 
Work  and  weave  in  endless  motion  ! 

Birth  and  Death 

An  infinite  Ocean ; 

A  seizing  and  giving 

The  fire  of  the  Living  ; 

'Tis  thus  at  the  roaring  Loom  of  Time  I  ply, 
And  weave  for  God  the  Garment  thou  see'st  Him  by.' 

Of  twenty  millions  that  have  read  and  spouted 
this  thunder-speech  of  the  Erdgeist,  are  there  yet 


DEEPER  MEANING  OF  EVOLUTION  47 

twenty  units  of  us  that  have  learned  the  meaning 
thereof ! " 

Well,  if  Mind  be  that  into  which  all  these  dis- 
tinctions, including  the  distinctions  which  go  to  the 
making  of  presentation  in  space  and  time,  fall,  there 
is  a  deeper  view  of  evolution  than  any  with  which 
people  are  ordinarily  familiar.  If  the  process  of 
succession  in  time  be  but  a  process  that  falls  within 
the  sphere  of  presentation  by  the  mind  to  the  mind, 
and  if  the  last  in  time  be  nevertheless  the  first  in 
logic,  then  if  we  would  comprehend  the  true  mean- 
ing of  evolution  we  must  seek  it  in  the  ends  which 
the  mind  realises  in  its  processes.  We  must  seek 
it  in  the  stages  of  comprehension,  or  rather  of  self- 
comprehension,  of  the  mind.  It  is  only  another 
way  of  stating  all  this  to  say  that  it  is  just  as  set 
in  the  universals  of  reflection,  as  Aristotle  long  ago 
showed,  that  the  particulars  of  feeling  have  exist- 
ence. I  quoted  to  you  in  the  first  lecture  last  year 
Mill's  analysis  of  existence  into  the  permanent 
possibilities  of  sensation,  an  analysis  which  he 
extended  to  the  mind  just  as  he  had  applied  it  to 
the  external  world.  It  is  these  permanent  possi- 
bilities, the  universals  in  which  the  particulars  are 
set,  and  in  union  with  which,  they  alone  come  to 
reality,  that  give  its  true  meaning  to  existence. 
Not  that  the  universals  and  the  particulars  can  be 
separated  —  Aristotle  long  ago  showed  that  they 
have  no  existence  independent  of  one  another — but 
they  are  moments,  factors  in  the  ultimate  reality, 
and  it  is  only  in  reflection  that  we  come  to  dis- 


48  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  n. 

tinguish  them.  Yet  in  reflection  we  do  distinguish 
them ;  we  do  distinguish  feeling,  for  instance,  from 
thought.  The  psychologist  Mtinsterberg,  in  a  book 
which  I  quoted  to  you  last  year,  shows  that  the 
method,  or  one  of  the  methods  of  his  science,  is 
what  he  calls  Presentationism,  the  seizing  upon 
feeling  and  by  a  sort  of  abstraction  converting  it 
into  a  self-subsisting  phenomenon  divorced  from  the 
movement  of  reflection  which  gives  it  its  meaning. 
Just  as  you  may  hypostatise  feeling  by  abstraction, 
so  you  may  hypostatise  thought  by  abstraction. 
Hegel  points  out  that  it  is  the  doing  this  which 
has  caused  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  which  people 
experience  in  trying  to  understand  the  method  of 
philosophy.  They  will  imagine,  following  the 
tendency  to  make  hard  and  abstract  distinctions 
which  is  so  prevalent  in  everyday  life,  that  thought 
is  something  which  can  be  taken  apart  from  its 
content,  that  thought  and  feeling,  for  instance,  can 
be  separated  as  two  different  existences,  whereas 
the  truth  is  that  it  is  only  in  reflection  that  the 
distinction  emerges.  The  objective  system  in  which 
we  perceive  reality  is  neither  the  one  nor  the  other, 
but  the  reality  in  which  both  attain  their  meaning, 
and  it  is  not  possible  to  separate  the  one  from  the 
other  except  in  abstract  reflection. 

Now,  another  conclusion  to  which  one  comes  in 
this  connection  is  that  mind  as  the  ultimate  factor, 
the  ultimate  reality  within  which  all  these  distinc- 
tions fall  because  it  has  itself  made  them,  can  only 
be  described  in  terms  of  itself.  That  is  one  of  the 


THE  ACTIVITY  OF  MIND  49 

difficulties  we  have  in  trying  to  give  an  account  of 
mind.  We  are  dealing  with  what  is  the  ultimately 
real  and  cannot  be  expressed  in  terms  of  any- 
thing lying  beyond  itself,  and  therefore  it  is  that  we 
must  go  back  and  simply  set  our  own  mind  to 
observe  itself  and  record  its  observations  in  a  fashion 
which  is  free  from  the  hypostatised  abstractions  and 
metaphors  which  pass  current  in  everyday  life. 
The  mind  is  obviously  that  which  makes  its  own 
distinctions,  and  it  is  its  essential  character  to  make 
these  distinctions.  It  must  make  its  own  distinc- 
tions, and  make  them,  not  as  a  mere  movement  of 
universals,  but  as  a  concrete  living  reality,  whose 
very  nature  is  to  be  active,  and  whose  characteristic 
it  is  to  be  always  setting,  as  it  were,  its  own  forms, 
its  own  activities,  and  so  giving  them  an  air  of 
having  an  existence  fixed  in  independence  of  each 
other;  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  comprehends 
them  in  a  larger  whole  in  which  they  are  seen  to 
be  there  only  as  factors  or  moments.  I  shall  get 
to  that  point  presently,  and  I  wish  merely  to  make 
it  at  the  present  stage. 

Now  let  us  see  how  this  fact  has  been  recog- 
nised, not  only  by  the  metaphysicians,  but  again  by 
the  poets.  I  have  quoted  to  you  Carlyle,  as  show- 
ing how  a  person  of  great  imaginative  insight  had 
come  to  the  conclusion,  not  as  matter  of  specula- 
tion but  as  matter  of  direct  insight,  that  the 
ultimate  reality  of  existence  was  to  be  sought  in 
mind,  and  therefore  had  not  that  hard-and-fast 

character  which  is  so  baffling  to  the  persons  who 

D 


50  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  ,,. 

want  to  penetrate  beneath  the  hard  crust  of  this 
world  of  appearances.  But  you  have  got  the  same 
truth  set  forth  by  those  who  are  in  the  stricter 
sense  the  poets.  I  quoted  to  you  once  before 
Wordsworth's  Sonnet  on  the  River  Duddon.  I  will 
quote  it  again,  because  it  shows  how  Wordsworth, 
who  had  a  fine  metaphysical  insight,  saw  that  what 
was  real  and  distinctive  in  his  vision  of  the  stream, 
was  not  the  particular  particles  of  water  which 
floated  by — the  actual  water  was  always  changing 
— but  the  form  in  which  the  stream  was  compre- 
hended as  a  whole  : 

"  Foi',  backward,  Duddon,  as  I  cast  my  eyes, 
I  see  what  was,  and  is,  and  will  abide. 
Still  glides  the  stream,  and  shall  for  ever  glide ; 
The  Form  remains,  the  Function  never  dies." 

It  is  only  for  the  mind  that  is  capable  of  con- 
templating the  stream  as  a  whole  that  it  can 
present  that  form  and  function.  But  there  is  a 
poet  who  has  had  a  finer  insight  even  than  Words- 
worth into  the  deeper  nature  of  phenomena,  that 
nature  which  discloses  them  as  constantly  changing 
and  as  presenting  their  continuity  only  in  the 
wholes  into  which  thought  binds  them.  Goethe 
in  his  poem,  "Eins  und  Alles,"  says  : 

"Nur  scheinbar  stehts'  momente  still, 
Das  Ewig'regt  sich  fort  in  alien  ; 
Denn  Alles  muss  in  nichts  zerfallen, 
Wenn  es  im  Sein  beharren  will." 

"  Only  in  seeming  stands  the  moment  still, 
In  all  the  Eternal  is  in  motion, 
For  all  that  is  must  change  to  nothing, 
If  to  existence  it  would  hold  and  be." 


CONCEPTION  OF  THE  SELF          51 

Well,  the  poets  and  the  philosophers  have 
come  to  the  same  conclusion  about  this  matter. 
There  is  no  more  difficulty  in  rising  to  the  con- 
ception of  the  real  nature  of  things  as  .falling  within 
the  mind,  and  as  possessing  its  characteristics,  than 
there  is  in  topics  which  we  have  to  examine  every 
day.  For  instance,  I  have  already  discussed  the 
difference  between  life  and  mechanism.  You  can- 
not express  the  nature  of  a  living  body  in  mechanical 
terms.  You  must  speak  of  it  in  words  which 
recognise  a  whole  that  controls  its  parts,  not  as 
from  without,  but  as  what  determines  the  behaviour 
of  the  parts  from  within,  and  makes  the  cells  of 
which  the  organism  is  composed  more  like  soldiers 
in  an  army  with  a  common  purpose,  than  like  the 
wheels  and  cranks  of  a  machine  which  are  external 
to  one  another  and  only  held  together  by  outside 
compulsion.  In  the  organism  you  are  lifted  into  a 
new  set  of  conceptions  which  were  wholly  foreign 
when  you  were  dealing  with  mere  mechanism,  and  so, 
when  in  mind  you  are  lifted  to  the  conception  of 
that  which  presents  itself  to  itself,  to  what  has 
meaning  only  in  terms  of  distinctions  which  it 
makes  for  itself,  you  are  not  really  dealing  with 
anything  more  extraordinary  than  you  were  deal- 
ing with  when  you  made  the  transition  from  the 
machine  to  the  living  organism. 

We  found  in  the  last  set  of  lectures  that  the  old 
chase  after  the  meaning  of  the  self  proved  a  hope- 
less one,  so  far  as  the  method  of  psychology  was 
concerned.  We  found  that  in  the  pursuit  of  the 


52  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  n. 

self  we  baled  out  part  after  part  of  the  content 
until  we  could  find  nothing  that  we  could  say  really 
belonged  to  the  self.  Where  we  emerged  nearest 
to  it,  where  we  seemed  to  get  something  which  ex- 
pressed the  self  although  it  was  not  the  self  or  even 
what  was  popularly  called  the  self,  was  in  the  soul. 
But,  when  we  came  to  examine  the  nature  of  the 
soul,  we  found  that  the  soul  was  nothing  but  what 
we  had  before  regarded  as  the  body,  though  in  a 
different  aspect.  That  did  not  cause  us  apprehen- 
sion of  being  landed  in  materialism,  because  we  had 
got  away  from  the  notion  of  these  two  things  as 
substances,  of  the  one  depending  upon  the  other 
for  its  existence  in  some  mechanical  fashion.  We 
found  in  the  soul,  first  an  aspect  of  that  which  in 
a  different  aspect  was  called  the  body,  and  then  we 
discovered  that  it  implied  body  just  as  much  as 
body  implied  soul.  These  two  presentations  rather 
seemed  to  be  two  elements  or  factors  which 
were  required  in  order  that  in  comprehending  them 
we  might  get  to  the  notion  of  a  self  of  which  they 
were  the  expression,  and  which  was  their  truth. 
The  self,  in  so  far  as  we  can  get  near  it  psychologi- 
cally, that  is  to  say,  by  looking  into  our  own  bosoms, 
seems  to  imply  a  soul  and  a  body,  and  yet  these 
two,  the  one  of  which  hampers  the  other — for  the 
body  is  never  adequate  to  the  soul — get  into  a  sort 
of  contradiction  and  prove  difficult  to  harmonise. 
The  body  is  more  than  a  mere  living  organism. 
There  is  something  more  that  is  characteristic  of  it 
as  a  body  than  there  is  in  a  mere  external  living 


BODY  AND  SOUL  53 

thing.  It  is  a  living  organism  that  feels,  that  behaves 
intelligently,  and  when  we  say  that  it  feels  and 
behaves  intelligently  we  mean  that  it  is  the  mani- 
festation of  a  self.  The  soul  is  just  that  aspect  of  the 
body  in  which  it  feels  and  behaves  intelligently.  The 
body  and  the  soul  are  of  course  in  time,  the  body 
at  least  in  space  also,  and  that  means  that  they  are 
presentations  made  by  the  mind.  But  the  mind  does 
more  than  merely  present  them  to  itself.  In  so  far 
as  it  recognises  them  as  sentient  and  as  intelligent  it 
recognises  them  as  its  own,  as  aspects  of  the  indivi- 
dual of  reality  within  which  emerge  all  the  distinc- 
tions which  are  made  within  self-consciousness. 

Now  this  conception  arises  really  as  the  result 
of  the  deeper  kind  of  evolution  of  which  I  spoke 
before,  the  logical  chain  in  which  the  first  in  time 
is  the  last  in  thought.  The  order  in  time  is  here 
the  inverse  of  the  order  in  Logic.  It  may  well  be, 
and  analysis  shows  that  it  is  so,  that  the  distinc- 
tion of  soul  from  body  and  the  distinction  of  the 
self  from  the  not-self  are  distinctions  which  exist 
only  for  the  mind,  and  because  they  are  for  the 
mind  are  made  by  the  mind.  As  self-conscious- 
ness is  discovered  to  be  the  larger  whole  in  which 
these  are  moments,  we  get  a  view  of  things  in 
which  we  see  that  the  relation  of  our  own  soul  and 
body  is  a  relation  which  perplexes  and  puzzles  us 
merely  because  we  have  grasped  it  in  abstractions 
and  distinctions  which  we  have  made  hard,  because 
for  practical  purposes  it  was  necessary  that  we 
should  make  them  hard. 


54  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  n. 

Now  this  point  is  worth  spending  a  moment 
or  two  in  elaborating.  The  soul  seems  to  be  that 
aspect  of  our  experience  as  persons  in  which  we 
do  not  yet  fully  contemplate  the  content  of  the 
mind  from  the  standpoint  of  self-consciousness, 
and  in  which  we  have  abstracted  from  the  freedom 
and  power  of  detachment  which  are  the  character- 
istics of  self-consciousness.  It  seems  to  be  dis- 
tinctive of  full  self-consciousness  that  it  should  be 
recognised  as  able  to  extrude  and  exclude  any  parti- 
cular part  of  its  content.  That  is  why  it  was  that  we 
found  that  we  could  never  get  psychologically  at  the 
notion  of  the  self.  In  the  soul  we  have  the  body 
on  its  ideal  side,  separable  from  the  body  only  in 
abstract  reflection.  The  body  as  such  is  its  vehicle, 
and  it  may  be  said  to  be  in  a  sense  a  function  of 
the  body.  They  are  factors,  each  of  them,  or 
moments,  which  go  to  the  making  of  the  conscious 
self,  since  they  are  only  for  that  self.  The  more  they 
are  made  the  expression  of  that  self-consciousness 
the  more  they  disclose  themselves  as  inadequate, 
as  lacking  in  that  quality  of  being  above  and  beyond 
change  which  belongs  only  to  the  self  as  subject,  as 
no  more  than  presentations  destined  to  be  superseded 
in  a  larger  comprehension  by  the  consciousness  for 
which  space  and  time,  and  body  and  soul  as  in 
space  and  time,  are.  Death  is  inherent  in  them 
just  because  their  nature  is  to  be  transient,  to 
belong  to  a  world  of  phenomena  where  birth  and 
growth  and  decay  and  dying,  are  not  only  the 
natural  but  the  necessary  features  of  an  existence 


THEIE  RELATION  TO  THE  SELF      55 

that  more  and  more  exemplifies  the  contradiction 
that  discloses  itself,  wherever  mere  life  as  object 
in  a  space  and  time  world  is  taken  to  be  the  ulti- 
mate aspect  of  reality.  The  real  existence  out  of 
time  begins  not  beyond  the  grave  but  on  this  side 
of  it  The  self,  conscious  of  itself  as  the  subject  for 
which  the  world  exists,  solves  the  contradiction, 
the  want  of  harmony  between  the  soul  and  its 
imperfect  vehicle,  body,  in  that  it  is  aware  that 
both  exist  merely  as  relational  and  as  forms  within 
its  own  object  world. 

Now  this  process  of  soul  and  body,  existing  in 
change  and  always  working  out,  as  it  were,  the  con- 
tradiction between  them,  is  exemplified  in  the  course 
of  life.  A  child  starts  with  a  sense  of  something  that 
is  foreign  to  it,  that  resists  it.  As  reflection  dawns 
in  its  soul,  it  begins  more  and  more  to  exercise  self- 
control  and  to  act  rationally.  More  and  more  it 
makes  its  body  conform  to  and  express  the  purposes 
of  its  mind.  As  it  grows  up  it  becomes  aware  of 
itself  as  a  rational  being  in  rational  society  and 
with  rational  surroundings.  But  although  the 
course  of  life  is  just,  as  it  were,  the  equation  of  the 
child's  body  to  its  soul,  and  of  both  to  the  surround- 
ings, you  find  that,  as  the  result  of  the  habit  into 
which  the  struggle  and  the  victory  over  obstacles 
crystallise,  a  certain  deadening  inevitably  ensues. 
And  the  course  of  life  is  just  that  the  activity  of 
the  child  more  and  more  assumes  the  form  of  habit, 
until  in  middle  age  and  still  more  in  old  age,  soul 
and  body  tend  to  become  inert.  The  sense  of 


56  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  n. 

foreignness  which  was  the  spring  of  exertion  is 
gone,  with  the  consequence  that  there  is  less  vitality, 
less  activity,  than  there  was  in  the  period  of  the 
early  struggle.  Thus  we  pass  through  middle  age 
and  old  age  to  our  natural  end  as  objects  in  a  world 
of  change. 

In  a  fine  passage  in  his  Philosophy  of  Mind 
Hegel  shows  how  the  process  is  exemplified  in  the 
life  of  man,  and  how  that  life  works  out  under  the 
governance  of  an  end.  "  He  begins  with  childhood, 
the  mind  wrapped  up  in  itself.  His  next  step  is  the 
fully  developed  antithesis,  the  strain  and  struggle 
of  a  universality  which  is  still  subjective  (as  seen 
in  ideals,  fancies,  hopes,  ambitions)  against  his 
immediate  individuality.  And  that  individuality 
marks  both  the  world  which,  as  it  exists,  fails  to 
meet  his  ideal  requirements,  and  the  position  of 
the  individual  himself,  who  is  still  short  of  inde- 
pendence and  not  fully  equipped  for  the  part  he 
has  to  play  (that  is  to  say,  Youth}.  Thirdly,  we  see 
Man  in  his  true  relation  to  his  environment,  recog- 
nising the  objective  necessity  and  reasonableness  of 
the  world  as  he  finds  it — a  world  no  longer  incom- 
plete, but  able  in  the  work  which  it  collectively 
achieves  to  afford  the  individual  a  place  and  a 
security  for  his  performance.  By  his  share  in  this 
collective  work  he  is  first,  is  somebody,  gaining  an 
effective  existence  and  an  objective  value  (that  is 
to  say,  Manhood).  Last  of  all  comes  the  finishing 
touch  to  his  unity  with  objectivity  ;  a  unity  which, 
while  on  its  realist  side  it  passes  into  the  inertia 


CHARACTER  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  57 

of  deadening  habit,  on  its  idealist  side  gains  free- 
dom from  the  limited  interests  and  entanglements 
of  the  outward  present  (that  is  to  say,  Old  Age)" 

You  will  find  in  connection  with  this  matter  a 
great  deal  of  literature  which  belongs  to  the  pro- 
vince of  anthropology,  and  I  will  not  follow  it  out 
further  at  this  stage,  but  the  point  is  illustrative 
of  the  main  topic  of  this  particular  lecture. 

Well,  as  the  outcome  of  that  way  of  looking  at 
things,  one  is  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  self- 
consciousness  is  the  larger  whole  in  which  body  and 
soul  are  what  I  have  called  moments.  In  other 
words,  it  is  in  the  union  of  these  two  aspects  in  the 
reality  which  they  attain  in  the  mind  which  is  more 
than  mere  soul,  because  mind  is  that  for  which  soul 
and  body  are,  that  you  get  to  reality.  And  the  ques- 
tion which  arises  is  whether,  if  it  is  of  the  nature  of 
self-consciousness  that  it  should  be  something  more 
than  mere  soul,  just  as  it  is  something  more  than 
mere  body,  if  it  is  the  truth  of  the  two,  these 
moments  are  or  are  not  so  preserved  in  it  that 
self-consciousness  itself  bears  the  impress  of  the 
particular  human  personality  which  the  body  and 
soul  expressed  ?  Now,  in  the  relationship  of  two 
notions  such  as  being  and  not-being  you  find  that 
the  one  implies  the  other ;  and  further,  that,  as  we 
shall  see  presently,  the  whole  out  of  which  they  are 

*  Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Mind;  Wallace's  Translation,  p.  17. 
See  also  Erdmann,  Leib  und  Seele ;  and  Bosanquet,  Psychology 
of  the  Moral  Self;  the  Natur-Pkilosophie  of  Hegel  contains  in 
its  final  section  a  discussion  of  this  point. 


58  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  n. 

broken  up,  and  in  which  they  attain  reality,  is 
becoming.  Becoming,  which  assumes  the  form  of 
qualified  being  or  there-being,  is  a  notion  which  has 
not  wholly  destroyed  and  got  rid  of  these  two  earlier 
moments,  but  preserves  them  as  factors  or  moments 
in  itself  and  shows  the  traces  of  them.  Well,  upon 
that  there  turned  at  one  time  a  tremendous  contro- 
versy. Do  not  the  two  moments  of  our  individu- 
ality, what  make  us  just  this  particular  person  in 
the  world,  do  not  the  particular  body  and  soul,  that 
seem  to  be  essential  moments  in  the  self  just  as 
being  and  not-being  are  preserved  in  becoming, 
show  themselves  as  implied  and  as  kept  alive  in 
that  larger  whole  of  the  conscious  self  which  is 
their  truth  ?  Now  this  controversy  is  a  very  im- 
portant one.  A  modern  writer,  Professor  Royce, 
puts  it  that  no  meaning  which  has  once  been  in  the 
mind  of  God  can  ever  be  lost.  He  says  that  it  is 
only  when  you  are  dealing  with  the  sphere  of  space 
and  time  that  you  can  talk  of  loss,  of  perishing,  of 
passing  away,  and  that  when  you  are  talking  of 
what  is  out  of  time,  of  mind  as  the  eternal,  even 
the  moments  which  are  implied  in  its  self-expres- 
sion, and  which  give  particularity  to  its  meaning,  are 
moments  which  must  be  said  to  be,  not  preserved 
by,  for  that  is  no  better  than  to  speak  of  them  as 
having  a  beginning  in  time,  but  essential  elements  in 
the  mind  which  is  presupposed  as  the  very  condition 
of  the  beginning  and  is  independent  of  the  end. 

As  Royce  puts  it,  "  Can  any  meaning  which  has 
once  been  in  the  eternal  mind  be  otherwise  than 


CONTROVERSY  ABOUT  ITS  CHARACTER  59 

eternal  ? "  Can  any  mode  of  self-consciousness 
which  enters  into  the  truth  and  reality  of  the  self 
be  otherwise  than  of  the  nature  of  the  eternal  ? 
Now,  all  I  wish  to  say  at  the  moment  on  this  is 
that  it  recalls  a  long-forgotten  battlefield.  After  the 
death  of  Hegel  there  was  a  tremendous  controversy 
between  the  Hegelians  of  the  Right,  the  theological 
Hegelians,  and  the  Hegelians  of  the  Left,  over  this 
very  point.  Those  of  you  who  are  curious  about  it 
—and  it  has,  as  we  shall  see  better  later  on,  a 
bearing  upon  the  question  of  immortality — will 
find  an  account  of  it  in  the  last  part  of  Strauss's 
Dogmatik*  As  far  as  I  can  judge,  Hegel  himself 
regarded  the  controversy  as  really  irrelevant  and 
founded  on  failure  to  grasp  the  subject  in  its  full 
bearing.  He  seems  to  have  looked  upon  the 
problem  as  based  upon  dilemmas  arising  out  of  a 
too  narrow  standpoint.  For  him  the  whole  contro- 
versy apparently  had  its  origin  in  mistaken  meta- 
phors drawn  from  the  sphere  where  there  are 
beginnings  and  ends,  the  sphere  of  time. 

Well,  we  come  back  to  consider  further  what 
we  mean  by  the  self.  Another  characteristic  of  the 
self  to  which  I  must  now  pass  is  this,  that  it  is 
undoubtedly  presented  for  us  men  and  women  as 
finite.  By  finite  I  mean  limited  by  or  confronted 
with  something  else.  When  in  thinking  we  fix  an 
object  in  thought  and  try  to  preserve  a  clear  view 
of  the  distinction  which  has  been  made,  we  effect 

*  Published  under  the  title,  Die  Christliche  Glanbens-lehre,  in 
1841 ;  see  vol.  ii.,  pp.  727-739, 


60  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  H. 

an  abstraction,  that  is  to  say,  we  regard  our  object 
as  if  it  were  something  self-subsisting  and  dis- 
tinguished from  what  is  not  itself.  The  finite  is 
that  which  is  confronted  by  another  which  is 
conceived  as  having  existence  only  relatively  to  yet 
another,  and  it  is  this  mode  of  thinking,  really 
abstract  in  character,  which  gives  us  the  notion  of 
the  finite  self,  the  notion  namely,  that  we  can  talk 
of  self  as  we  do  for  practical  purposes,  and  regard 
it  as  something  which  has  a  fixed  and  immovable 
nature,  and  which  is  different  and  distinct  from  the 
not-self. 

But  you  will  notice  that  it  is  always  my  not-self 
that  I  distinguish  myself  from.  It  is  a  not-self 
which  is  determined  in  its  conception  by  the  marks 
by  which  I  characterise  it  for  the  social  purposes  of 
everyday  life.  We,  of  course,  must  make  these 
distinctions,  but  they  are  really  abstract  and  they 
are  the  outcome  of  reflection  which  might  theoreti- 
cally have  been  of  a  nature  quite  different.  And  it 
is  the  self  looked  upon  in  this  finite  fashion,  that  is 
to  say,  as  confronted  with  another,  that  gives  rise 
to  the  notion  of  the  self  as  a  substance,  and  so  to 
the  Berkeleian  notion  of  a  thinking  thing.  Now 
this  notion  of  the  mind  as  a  substance  brings  us 
into  solipsism.  There  is  no  escape  from  it  if  the 
mind  is  really  a  thing  in  space  and  time.  But,  to 
make  these  abstract  distinctions,  as  we  undoubtedly 
must  do,  is  only  one  side  of  the  activity  of  thought. 
What  it  divides  it  also  puts  together.  If  it  recog- 
nises a  limit  and  fixes  a  limit,  it  also  transcends 


CHARACTER  OF  THOUGHT          61 

that  limit.  If  you  watch  the  movement  of  thought 
it  is  always  fixing  something  in  reference  to  some- 
thing else,  and  yet,  in  recognising  it  as  distinguished 
from  something  else,  it  implies  that  there  is  a 
higher  standpoint  from  which  the  two  may  be 
contemplated.  It  posits,  as  it  were,  in  distinction, 
and  then  the  distinction  which  it  has  made  it  recog- 
nises as  having  its  truth  in  a  deeper  meaning,  and 
the  distinction  comes  in  that  way  to  be  put  past  or 
sublated. 

Now  thought  can  combine  these  two  functions, 
because  its  nature,  the  very  essence  of  its  nature, 
is  to  be  active.  The  mind,  which  is  neither  abstract 
thought  nor  bare  feeling,  but  which  is  just  concrete 
living  mind,  is  never  still.  It  is  always  producing 
by  the  contrasts  it  establishes  some  aspect  of  what 
is  actual  within  itself,  and  it  has  its  very  existence 
in  making  these  distinctions,  overcoming  them,  and 
presenting  the  whole  in  a  further  series  of  aspects. 
The  illustration  which  I  gave  you  before  of  the 
inseparability,  save  in  abstraction,  of  being  and  not- 
being,  is  a  good  one  on  this  point.  A  great  many 
people,  like  the  late  Mr  G.  H.  Lewes,  fell  foul  of 
Hegel  for  saying  that  being  and  not-being  were  the 
same  thing,  and,  of  course,  they  are,  for  practical 
purposes,  different  things.  But  when  you  are  in- 
vestigating the  nature  of  the  movement  of  thought 
in  the  distinctions  which  it  makes,  it  is  pretty 
evident  that  the  conception  of  the  thing  only  has 
meaning  in  contradistinction  to  the  alternative  that 
the  thing  is  not.  When  you  take  the  process  of 


62  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  n. 

growth,  of  change,  of  what  is  called  becoming,  it  is 
plain  that  you  have  just  these  two  notions  in  com- 
bination. In  every  definite  kind  or  form  of  being 
you  have  got  these  two  conceptions  of  being  and 
not-being  implied.  All  distinctive  quality  involves 
them.  The  reality  of  the  mind  is  its  activity,  and 
the  activity  is  an  activity  which  posits  or  sets  these 
distinctions  and  then  overcomes  them. 

Now  that  brings  me  to  what  I  must  say  a  word 
about,  the  distinction  between  what  have  been  called 
reason  and  understanding.  Reason  is  the  way  of 
looking  at  things  which  comprehends,  while  under- 
standing merely  apprehends.  They  are  not  two 
different  faculties.  It  is  only  darkening  counsel  to 
speak  of  them  as  though  they  were.  They  are  two 
different  modes  of  thinking  about  things,  deter- 
mined in  their  differences  by  the  purposes  which 
we  have  in  view.  If  I  want  to  make  a  hard-and- 
fast  distinction  it  is,  of  course,  natural  that  I  should 
express  myself  in  a  way  that  makes  the  distinction 
very  definite,  hypostatises  it,  if  I  may  use  the 
expression.  But  if,  upon  the  other  hand,  what  I 
want  to  do  is  really  to  see  how  this  distinction  looks 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  mind  which  made  it, 
and  which,  just  because  it  made  it,  is  capable  of 
expressing  it,  then  I  look  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  comprehension  which  seeks  to  resolve  the 
differences.  Reason  is,  therefore,  a  way  of  looking 
at  things  which  is  larger  than  the  mere  under- 
standing which  made  and  set  fast  the  differentiation. 
Reason  and  understanding  are  not  thoughts  of  two 


REASON  AND  UNDERSTANDING     63 

different  natures,  two  faculties.  They  are  thought 
pursuing  different  ends.  We  make  our  own  experi- 
ence present  different  appearances  according  as  our 
ends  differ.  That  is  a  very  familiar  observation. 
Long  ago  Montaigne  put  it  in  one  of  his  Essays, 
that  on  Democritus  and  Heraclitus,  in  very  simple 
language.  "  Wherefore,"  he  says,  "  let  us  no  longer 
excuse  ourselves  by  laying  the  blame  on  the  quality 
of  external  things.  It  belongs  to  us  to  give  our- 
selves an  account  of  them.  Our  good  and  our  evil 
had  no  dependency  except  from  ourselves.  To 
ourselves  let  us  make  our  offerings  and  our  vows, 
and  not  to  fortune.  She  hath  no  power  over 
our  character.  On  the  contrary,  character  draws 
fortune  in  its  train,  and  moulds  her  to  its  own 
form."  In  other  words,  what  to  the  man  whose 
spirit  is  cast  in  a  narrow  mould  seems  final  and 
irresoluble  in  ill-fortune,  may  seem  to  the  man  of 
larger  comprehension  a  very  different  thing.  It 
depends  on  our  end  and  purpose,  it  depends  on 
whether  we  are  at  the  standpoint  of  comprehension 
or  merely  of  apprehension  in  difference,  how  the 
things  present  themselves. 

Well,  the  essence  of  understanding  is  to  separate. 
If  I  look  at  marbles  in  a  row  my  purpose  is  to 
count  them,  to  enumerate  them,  and  therefore  I  am 
seeking  to  apprehend  them,  each  in  its  difference 
from  the  other.  If  I  am  trying  to  comprehend  I 
do  not  dwell  upon  the  distinctions,  but  I  search  for 
the  larger  whole,  the  unity  in  which  the  differences 
are  comprehended.  Now  for  apprehension,  for 


64  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  n. 

understanding,  the  leading  mode  of  operation  is 
distinction  in  space  and  in  time.  Between  space  and 
time  there  is  a  considerable  difference.  In  space 
things  are  regarded  as  just  as  completely  independent 
of  one  another  as  they  can  possibly  be.  The  very 
essence  of  space  is  mutual  exclusion  of  parts.  You 
have  got  the  very  hardest  of  distinctions  there.  But 
in  time  the  now  only  has  meaning  as  distinguished 
from  a  past  and  from  a  future.  These  never  co- 
exist. The  essence  of  them  is  that  the  one  should 
be  actual  and  real  in  contrast  with  the  other  two, 
the  past  and  the  future,  which  are  not  actual. 
Therefore  in  time  you  have  got  a  stage  on  towards 
comprehension,  towards  the  comprehension  of  the 
past,  the  present,  and  the  future  as  in  a  unity  in 
which  they  are  not  independent  but  related,  and 
which  is  more  than  any  one  of  them.  Just  so  in 
a  piece  of  music  you  have  the  notes,  no  doubt 
capable  of  being  taken  in  their  separation,  but  also 
getting  their  meaning,  and  each  one  getting  its 
meaning,  from  the  musical  whole  which  is  the  form 
in  which  full  comprehension  appears. 

Now  the  truth  about  space  and  time  is  that 
they  are  modes  in  which  the  mind  presents  phe- 
nomena, space  the  hardest  and  most  abstract  form 
of  distinction,  time  the  form  in  which  that  dis- 
tinction is  less  hard  and  abstract,  but  is  still  one 
in  which  separations  are  made.  But  it  is  plain, 
if  the  view  of  thought  which  I  have  been  present- 
ing to  you  is  right,  that  thought  not  only  must  have, 
but  actually  has,  other  and  higher  forms,  from  the 


SPACE  AND  TIME  65 

standpoint  of  which  presentation  in  space  and  time 
is  deficient  and  inadequate  to  the  truth.  Such  a 
view  of  space  as  one  among  a  multitude  of  other 
relations  in  reality  contrasts  a  good  deal  with  that 
with  which  those  of  you  who  have  read  Kant  are 
familiar.  Kant  looked  upon  space  and  time  as 
two  forms  which  had  an  existence  independent  of 
the  matter  of  sensation,  the  raw  material  of  sensa- 
tion, which  was  fitted  into  them  by  reflection.  The 
raw  material,  and  the  space  and  time,  and  the 
thought  which  operated  in  the  arranging  raw 
material  in  space  and  time,  he  at  least  spoke 
of  as  if  they  were  separable  elements.  But  if  the 
true  view  be,  not  that  the  mind  thinks  things  as 
though  arranging  them  ab  extra  in  the  forms  of 
space  and  time,  but  that  the  forms  of  space  and 
time  are  merely  stages  or  aspects  in  the  mode  of 
self-comprehension  by  the  mind  within  which  the 
whole  of  reality  falls,  then  it  is  plain  that  it  is  not 
quite  accurate  to  talk  of  space  and  time  as  specially 
forms.  They  are  not  separable  from  the  other  modes 
in  which  the  mind  arranges  its  contents.  Their 
position  is  just  like  that  of  other  modes  of  presenta- 
tion in  the  mind.  In  the  mind,  understood  as 
mind,  taken  from  the  standpoint  of  comprehension, 
we  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with  this,  that  it  is  pre- 
sent in  everything  it  does,  and  yet  that  everything 
it  does,  the  whole  of  its  activity,  only  has  meaning  as 
part  of  the  entirety  of  the  mind.  Whole  and  parts 
are  not  separate,  as  they  are  even  in  the  organism, 
where  the  realisation  of  the  whole  in  the  parts  is 

£ 


66  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L«CT.  u. 

never  quite  complete ;  but  in  the  mind  its  activity 
in  any  particular  mode  is  an  activity  which  implies 
the  entire  mind.  Look,  for  instance,  at  the  thinking 
of  things  as  cause  and  effect.  You  cannot  separate 
these  two.  If  you  apply  the  match  to  the  gun- 
powder it  seems  as  if  there  were  two  separate 
things,  one  cause  and  the  other  effect,  but  it  is  not 
so  when  you  come  to  scrutinise  closely.  What  you 
have  done  in  applying  the  match  is  to  release  the 
potential  energy  which  is  stored  up  in  the  gun- 
powder, and  if  it  is  said  that  the  match  is  the  true 
cause  of  the  explosion,  the  answer  is  that  the 
dryness  of  the  powder  and  a  host  of  other  indis- 
pensable conditions  might,  with  equal  truth  and 
untruth,  be  selected  for  the  distinction  of  being 
pronounced  the  cause. 

Cause  and  effect,  as  I  showed  you  in  detail  in 
the  earlier  lectures,  are  conceptions  which  are 
separable  only  in  abstraction.  The  cause  in  point 
of  fact  passes  into  the  effect,  and  the  effect  is  just 
the  cause  in  another  form ;  that  is  to  say,  the  mind 
makes  a  distinction  which  turns  out  to  be  a 
vanishing  one  as  the  purpose  changes.  The  con- 
ceptions in  which  the  mind  works  are  always  in 
a  sense  vanishing.  They  are  never  really  separate 
from  one  another  in  a  hard-and-fast  fashion. 
The  nature  of  the  mind  is  to  be  active,  to  posit 
its  distinctions  and  then  to  resolve  them,  and 
the  result  is  that  every  one  of  its  conceptions 
involves  every  other.  If  I  say  that  a  thing 
is,  I  mean  that  it  is  in  contrast  to  the  possi- 


THE  DIALECTICAL  NATURE  OF  MIND  67 

bility  that  it  is  not.  If  I  say  that  a  thing  is 
growing  or  becoming,  I  imply  that  not-being  has 
become  superseded  in  a  higher  stage  of  its  being. 
The  essence  of  the  mind  is  a  form  of  activity  in 
which  each  conception  implies  the  other,  and  in 
which  the  conceptions  or  categories  under  which 
the  mind  arranges  and  gives  meaning  to  its  experi- 
ences, the  universals  in  which  the  particulars  are 
grasped  in  the  individual,  are  a  logical  chain  in 
which  the  first  presupposes  the  last  and  the  last 
is  its  presupposition  and  its  truth.  Therefore  a 
great  task  of  theoretical  philosophy,  when  dealing 
with  the  meaning  of  these  conceptions  of  the  mind, 
must  be  to  set  them  out  in  a  system. 

Now  the  relation  to  each  other  of  these  concep- 
tions, when  they  are  set  out  in  such  a  system,  is, 
as  I  have  pointed  out  to  you,  not  the  relation  of 
dead  inert  separation,  but  the  relation  of  concep- 
tions each  of  which  implies  the  other,  and,  as  we 
are  dealing  with  thought  and  the  distinctions  made 
by  thought,  each  of  which  in  that  sense  passes  into 
the  other.  We  find  that  thought  never  stands  still. 
It  is  always  active,  even  its  fixing  of  distinctions  is 
activity.  Its  characteristic  has,  therefore,  been  said 
to  be  dialectical.  Dialectic  is  just  the  movement 
which  thought  exhibits  in  the  passing  from  one 
position  to  another.  Plato's  Parmenides  is  the 
Dialogue  in  which  he  sets  out  the  nature  of  thought, 
and  pronounces  it  to  be  dialectical  in  the  sense  I 
have  indicated,  but  just  because  he  is  dealing  there 
with  perhaps  the  most  difficult  part  of  philosophy, 


68  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  n. 

the  Parmenides  is  the  Dialogue  which  it  is 
hardest  to  summarise  or  give  a  short  account  of. 
Hegel  does  the  same  work  much  more  closely  in 
his  Logic.  He  is  not  trying  in  his  Logic  to  set 
out  a  picture  of  the  world ;  he  is  not  trying  to  show 
the  world  as  rising  out  of  thought,  as  people  have 
wrongly  supposed.  He  is  isolating  the  abstract  side 
of  the  actual.  He  is  taking  the  modes  in  which 
thought  operates  in  comprehending,  and  he  is 
showing  their  relation  the  one  to  the  other.  He 
is  really  starting  from  the  individual  of  reality  and 
by  abstraction  exhibiting  it  upon  its  universal  side. 
He  does  not  mean  that  in  his  Logic  you  have  got 
a  series  of  logical  forms,  a  sort  of  "  ballet  of  blood- 
less categories"  as  Mr  Bradley  has  named  them, 
which  exist  by  themselves  and  which  give  us,  as 
self  -  subsistent,  what,  to  use  a  phrase  of  his,  is 
God  as  He  was  before  the  creation  of  the  world. 
What  he  means  is  to  take  one  aspect  of  reality,  of 
the  concrete  individual  entirety  of  reality,  to  separate 
it  out  by  abstraction,  and  to  exhibit  mind  in  the 
aspect  in  which,  just  because  it  is  the  aspect  of  pure 
thought  that  he  is  here  dealing  with,  the  activity  of 
the  dialectic  is  most  apparent.  Hegel's  categories 
are  not,  like  Plato's,  to  be  conceived  as  in  some  sense 
apart  from  our  experiences.  They  are  just  what 
gives  meaning  to  our  experience,  and  it  is  only  in 
reflection  that  they  can  be  separated  out  from  the 
concrete  reality  of  experience.  The  linking  of 
one  to  the  other  by  the  inherent  dialectic  of  which 
they  are  the  manifestation,  Hegel  calls  the  Notion, 


HEGEL  69 

and  the  entire  system  the  Idea.  This  is  the  purest 
type  of  an  abstract  treatment  of  the  movement  of 
thought,  and  it  forms  the  subject  of  the  Hegelian 
Logic. 

Hegel  has  been  blamed  by  many  people  because 
they  say  he  has  not  shown  how  he  got  from  Logic 
to  Nature.  But  the  categories  of  his  Logic  do  not 
form  one  thing,  with  Nature  as  another  thing  in- 
dependent of  it.  Hegel  was  not  trying  to  show  a 
process  of  creation.  He  was  exhibiting  two  partial 
and  therefore  abstract  views  of  a  deeper  and  fuller 
reality ;  he  was  setting  out  on  its  abstract  side  the 
ultimate  reality  which  for  him  was  mind  in  its  con- 
crete actuality.  The  element  that  pertains  to  Nature, 
the  element  that  corresponds  to  the  particular  in 
its  relation  to  the  universal,  is  got  at  in  another 
abstract  way  of  looking  at  the  real.  To  this  he 
accords  a  separate  treatment  in  his  systematic 
account  of  the  place  of  nature  in  mind,  in  the  same 
way  as  he  had  separated  out  the  antithetical 
abstract  side  in  the  Logic.  Neither  is  actual  inde- 
pendently of  the  other,  and,  therefore,  to  talk  of  a 
transition  in  time  from  one  to  the  other,  is  simply 
to  show  that  you  have  not  understood  the  elemen- 
tary meaning  of  the  Hegelian  system. 

The  nature  of  thought  is,  as  I  have  several 
times  said,  to  make  distinctions  and  to  reconcile 
them  in  a  higher  meaning.  If  we  dwell  on  the 
distinctions  abstractly,  we  get  the  finite.  If  we 
dwell  upon  the  self  in  its  distinction  from  other 
selves  in  this  world,  as  we  must  do  for  our  own 


70  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L-cr.  n. 

social  purposes,  we  get  the  notion  of  the  finite  self. 
But  the  true  notion  of  infinity  is  not  an  infinity 
which  is  numerically  different  from  the  finite  self, 
but  it  is  the  self  conceived  as  higher  than  the  dis- 
tinctions which  go  to  the  making  of  its  finiteness, 
distinctions  which  therefore  really  fall  within  it. 
That  view  of  infinity,  the  view  of  the  self  as  that 
within  which  all  distinctions  emerge  —  that  view 
leads  us  to  the  conception  of  mind  as  the  ulti- 
mately real,  and  of  the  finite  self  as  one  only  of  the 
stages  at  which  mind  comprehends  its  own  content. 
It  leads  us  to  a  view  of  mind  in  which  we  are 
beyond  the  category  of  substance,  and  are  there- 
fore delivered  from  the  perils  of  solipsism.  It 
brings  us  to  living,  concrete,  self-conscious  mind. 
The  more  exact  relation  of  this  to  finite  mind  is 
what  I  shall  have  to  deal  with  in  the  next  lecture. 


LECTURE  III 

To  those  of  you  who  listened  to  my  last  lecture  it 
will  be  apparent  that  I  am  not  satisfied  with  a  view 
of  reality  which  would  reduce  it  to  intelligible 
relations.  For  it  must  seek  its  ultimate  character 
in  a  form  fuller  than  the  finite  form  of  relational  or 
discursive  reflection.  It  is  only  in  the  abstraction 
of  such  reflection  that  these  intelligible  relations,  as 
they  have  been  called,  get  isolated  from  the  moment 
of  the  particular,  the  particular  in  combination  with 
which  they  form  the  concrete  living  singular,  which 
appears  as  the  content  of  mind  or  as  the  self- 
comprehension  of  mind,  according  to  the  fashion 
in  which  we  are  approaching  it.  The  activity 
of  mind  which  is  disclosed  in  the  actual  is 
one  and  indivisible.  If  we  would  arrive  at  the 
nature  and  character  of  mind  we  must  therefore 
start  with  this  activity  as  being  not  only  the  final 
truth  about  the  mind,  but  as  being  that  which 
in  reality  is  the  first,  the  prius.  The  contrary 
view  is  a  view  which  is  associated  in  the  history 
of  philosophy  with  the  great  name  of  Kant, 
because  more  and  more  people  are  coming  to  see 

that  what  Kant  really  did  was  to  set  the  actual 
n 


72  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L*CT.  m. 

upon  the  rack,  so  to  speak,  and  tear  it  to  pieces. 
If  the  view  of  things  which  I  have  been  putting 
before  you  is  the  true  one,  all  mind  can  do  is, 
starting  with  what  is  in  reality  itself,  to  make 
explicit  what  is  implicit.  Now  according  to  Kant 
knowledge  was  a  process  which  could  be  dissected 
and  broken  up.  He  took  the  unity  of  ultimate 
reality  and  he  sought  to  resolve  it  into  constituent 
elements.  He  seems  to  have  put  the  wrong  ques- 
tion. It  should  not  have  been  the  question,  "  What 
is  the  process  of  perception  in  which  reality  is  put 
together,"  but  rather  "What  is  the  meaning  of 
reality  ? " 

Well,  the  result  has  been  a  very  considerable 
reaction  from  the  standpoint  of  ordinary  Idealism 
within  our  time,  and  I  think  that  it  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  this  reaction  has  been  due  to  the  repel- 
lent influence  of  Kant  on  some  who  are  not  Kantians. 
In  this  country  one  of  the  most  strenuous  of  those 
who  have  advocated  what  is  a  view  inconsistent 
with  that  of  Kant  is  Mr  F.  H.  Bradley,  a  very 
great  thinker.  In  Mr  Bradley's  view  mind  is 
the  final  form  of  reality,  but  he  is  unable  to  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  its  nature  can  be  compre- 
hended by  thought — thought  being  for  him,  as  he 
holds,  relational  only,  that  is,  its  function  being  to 
establish  relations  between  terms  that  are  not  in 
themselves  reducible  to  mere  thought.  He  holds 
that  it  is  impossible  that  thought  should  tell  us  the 
final  truth  about  reality.  He  apparently  believes 
that  it  is  conceivable  that  there  should  be  other 


DISCURSIVE  THOUGHT  73 

elements  in  the  activity  of  mind  besides  thought — 
for  example,  feeling.  Now  if  I  am  right  in  what  I 
have  been  saying  to  you,  feeling  is  nothing  apart 
from  thinking,  just  as  thinking  is  nothing  apart 
from  feeling.  In  each  you  certainly  have  the 
dialectical  character  of  the  activity  of  mind  bodying 
itself  forth.  The  dialectical  nisus  is  apparent 
whichever  aspect  you  take,  and  that  is  owing  to 
the  fact  that  this  dialectical  nisus  or  activity  is  of 
the  very  essence,  the  very  inmost  nature  of  mind 
itself.  It  is  possible  that  the  scepticism  of  Mr 
Bradley  is  the  outcome  of  the  splendidly  thorough 
piece  of  work  he  has  done  in  subjecting  the  notion 
of  thought,  as  it  is  treated  in  ordinary  logic,  to  a 
complete  revisal  and  overhaul.  But  it  seems  as  if 
the  scepticism — for  scepticism  it  is — in  which  he 
apparently  ends  is  hardly  more  consistent  with 
itself  than  was  the  scepticism  of  the  Greeks  and  of 
Hume.  For  after  all  what  question,  even  about 
the  limits  of  the  capacity  of  thought,  can  be  raised 
excepting  upon  the  basis  of  thought  itself?  It 
would  seem  as  though  Mr  Bradley's  view  of  thought 
was  too  narrow,  as  though  his  conception  of  it  was 
that  limited  conception  which  Hegel,  in  a  passage 
which  I  referred  to  yesterday,  points  out.  Hegel 
says  that  much  of  our  difficulty  arises  from  taking 
thought  to  mean  merely  the  "reflective  thinking 
which  has  to  deal  with  thoughts  as  thoughts,  and 
brings  them  into  consciousness."  *  A  few  sentences 
further  on  in  the  same  book,  Hegel  sums  up  the 

*  Hegel's  Logic  ;  Wallace's  Translation,  p.  5. 


74  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [!».  '»• 

substance  of  the  matter  by  declaring  that  the  contents 
of  our  consciousness  "remain  one  and  the  same, 
whether  they  are  felt,  seen,  represented  or  willed, 
and  whether  they  are  merely  felt,  or  felt  with  an 
admixture  of  thoughts,  or  merely  and  simply 
thought."  Feeling,  perception,  thought  itself,  are 
for  him  merely  the  forms  into  which  the  mind 
throws  itself  in  making  itself  its  own  content  or 
object. 

Mr  Bradley's  Absolute  is,  therefore,  that  of 
which  he  can  give  no  direct  account.  The  ultimate 
reality  it  must  be.  But  it  is  got  at  in  a  fashion 
which  seems  to  imply  a  gap  in  the  capacity  of 
reason,  and  consequently  it  comes  to  us  rather 
suddenly.  To  use  two  metaphors  which  Hegel 
applied  to  the  Absolute  of  Schelling,  Mr  Bradley's 
Absolute  seems  as  though  it  were  "  shot  out  of  a 
pistol,"  or,  in  the  language  of  the  other  metaphor, 
"  like  the  night  in  which  all  cows  look  black."  We 
know  very  little  about  it  save  that  all  disappears 
in  it.  But  we  owe  a  great  debt  to  Mr  Bradley. 
He  has  done  the  work  of  the  great  metaphysicians 
over  again  in  a  fashion  which  is  unparalleled  in 
recent  times  for  its  thoroughness  and  acuteness, 
and  he  stands  at  the  very  head  of  the  philosophical 
world.  He  has  been  fortunate  in  finding  a  colleague 
in  the  leadership  of  that  peculiar  movement  away 
from  Kant  with  which  his  name  is  associated,  a 
colleague  who  is,  perhaps,  less  of  a  sceptic  than 
himself,  and  whose  work  has  been,  what  his  own 
really  is,  not  only  critical  but  constructive. 


CONTEMPORARY  METAPHYSICS     76 

When  I  see  your  new  Professor  of  Moral  Phi- 
losophy *  sitting  before  me  in  the  audience  which 
I  now  am  addressing,  I  confess  I  feel  a  little  like 
an  evangelical  preacher  who  stands  in  front  of  a 
congregation  containing  an  archbishop.  I  can 
only  say  that  a  study  of  his  books  has  made  me 
feel  nearer  to  what  I  think  is  his  standpoint  than 
to  that  of  any  other  living  thinker,  and  I  commend 
those  of  you  who  have  listened  to  these  elementary 
lectures  on  Idealism  to  a  study  of  his  great  books 
on  Logic,  on  ^Esthetics,  and  on  the  State. 

Well,  there  is  another  modern  thinker  who  is  the 
very  antithesis  of  Bradley,  I  mean  Professor  Royce 
of  Harvard.  Now,  Royce  does  not  commit  himself 
upon  the  point  of  his  exact  historical  position.  He 
may  be,  for  aught  that  appears — and  I  rather  think 
he  is — a  disciple  of  the  school  which  in  its  broad  sig- 
nificance I  have  endeavoured  to  put  before  you  as 
founded  by  Aristotle  and  carried  to  its  full  develop- 
ment by  Hegel.  In  Royce  the  dominant  note  is 
ethical.  The  will  and  its  purposes  bulk  largely. 
The  real  with  Royce  is  that  in  which  purpose  rests 
satisfied,  with  a  sense  of  no  further  incompleteness 
left.  The  criterion  of  reality  in  his  view  may 
therefore,  in  a  sense,  be  said  to  be  ethical.  But 
with  him,  of  course,  the  will  and  the  intelligence, 
and  this  is  necessitated  by  his  standpoint,  are  not 
separated  as  they  are  separated,  for  example,  by 
Schopenhauer.  With  Royce  the  Absolute  is  con- 
ceived as  an  individual  living  Self,  expressing  itself 

*  Professor  Bosanquet. 


76  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  m. 

in  particular  forms,  particular  meanings,  living 
forms  of  its  intelligence,  which  are  the  foundations 
of  finite  personalities  that  have  the  basis  of  their 
Eeality  in  the  Absolute  Mind.  There  are  some 
things  in  Professor  Royce's  work  which  seem  to 
me  to  be  of  great  value.  There  is  his  investigation 
of  the  nature  of  time  in  relation  to  the  will,  and, 
as  the  outcome  of  this,  his  investigation  of  the 
nature  of  the  general  forms  of  time-series. 

Now,  the  notion  of  a  series  is  one  which  has 
always  given  rise  to  a  considerable  amount  of  dis- 
cussion. You  have  the  series  in  music,  in  the 
sonata,  for  example,  in  which  you  have  a  succession 
of  musical  sounds  which  is  a  great  deal  more  than 
a  succession  of  isolated  units  unconnected  with  one 
another.  The  meaning  of  each  arises  from  its 
relation  to  the  whole  of  the  conception,  and  the 
musical  whole  is  present  in  every  part  of  the  sonata. 

Take,  again,  a  more  purely  mathematical  series. 
Suppose  I  start  with  unity  and  add  to  it  a  half,  and 
then  a  fourth,  and  then  an  eighth,  and  then  a  six- 
teenth, and  so  on.  I  am  making  an  addition,  I  am 
extending  in  a  series  which  has  no  end ;  that  is 
to  say,  I  can  go  on  for  ever  doing  this  without 
coming  to  a  termination  at  any  particular  point. 
But  at  the  same  time,  taking  a  fuller  view  of  the 
relation  of  the  members  of  the  series,  I  find  that 
they  embody  a  law  which  points  to  a  limit.  Further 
than  that  limit  they  cannot  go,  and  the  limit  is,  of 
course,  in  this  case  the  number  two.  And  that  is 
because  each  member  of  the  series  is  something  else 


THE  TRUE  NATURE  OF  SERIES       77 

than  a  mere  isolated  unit.  It  is  something  that 
embodies  in  itself  the  law  of  the  series.  By  the 
study  of  this  conception  of  series  Royce  has  been 
brought  to  certain  views,  which  must  have  atten- 
tion, of  the  nature  of  infinity.  He  appears  to  have 
been  greatly  influenced  in  his  work  by  a  German 
mathematician,  Dedekind,  who  in  1887  published 
an  Essay  which  came  into  my  hands  several  years 
ago,  before  I  had  seen  Royce's  book,  and  I  noticed 
its  metaphysical  character  at  the  time.  Dedekind 
investigated  the  nature  of  series  as  Royce  has 
investigated  it,  and  referred  it  back  to  the  peculiar 
character  of  the  mind  which  is  to  be  wholly  present 
in  its  expressions  or  manifestations.  In  the  mind 
there  is  no  externality  of  the  whole  to  the  parts  or 
of  the  parts  to  the  whole.  The  activity  of  the 
mind  is  constantly  comprehending  its  whole  self 
in  its  expressions. 

Dedekind  got  hold  of  that  in  his  little  book, 
"  Was  sind  and  was  sollen  die  Zahlen"  and  treated 
it  in  a  way  that  almost  anybody  who  has  reflected 
on  these  things  at  all  can  understand,  because  there 
is  really  much  more  of  what  is  metaphysical  in  it 
than  there  is  of  mathematical  technicality.  Now 
Dedekind  seems  to  have  suggested  to  Royce  what 
the  latter  insists  upon  as  the  true  nature  of  series, 
and  what  he  has  since  developed.  It  is  very 
interesting  to  contrast  the  perfervidum  ingenium 
with  which  Royce  goes  into  the  matter,  with  the 
sceptical  way  in  which  one  could  picture  to  oneself 
Bradley  approaching  it.  Of  course  Royce  has  not 


78  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  m. 

escaped  a  good  deal  of  criticism  on  his  view,  but 
still  it  is  a  very  remarkable  investigation  which  he 
puts  forward  in  the  Supplementary  Essay  appended 
to  the  first  volume  of  his  Gifford  Lectures,  The 
World  and  the  Individual.  He  insists  that  the 
mathematical  inquiry  of  which  I  have  spoken 
shows  that  there  are  series  of  such  a  kind  that  the 
whole  series,  though  infinite,  though  endless  in 
the  sense  that  it  can  be  extended  without  limit,  can 
yet  be  viewed  as  given  in  its  entirety  in  its  defini- 
tion, and  consequently  as  implicit  in  each  member  of 
the  series. 

You  will  see  what  that  means  from  the  illustra- 
tions I  have  given  you.  Take  the  second  one  first, 
the  mathematical  series.  In  the  relationship  of 
each  member  of  this  series  to  the  others  you  have 
got  the  law  of  the  whole  that  enables  you  to  sum 
it  up,  and  to  show  that  the  number  two  is  the 
limit  to  which  it  approximates.  In  the  case  of  the 
sonata  you  have,  in  like  manner,  the  musical  whole 
manifesting  itself  in  the  relation  of  the  parts,  and 
in  that  way,  Royce  argues,  you  have  got  the  series 
in  a  form  in  which  it  can  be  viewed  as  given  in  its 
entirety  in  its  definition,  and  implicitly  given  in  its 
entirety  in  every  member  of  the  series.  Such  a 
series  he  calls  self-representative.  Next  he  applies, 
just  as  Dedekind  did  before  him,  this  conception  to 
the  self.  He  finds  that  the  number  series  is  a 
purely  abstract  image  of  the  relational  system  that 
must  characterise  an  ideally  completed  self;  that  is 
to  say,  a  self  that  does  not  merely  pass  from  ex- 


THE  TRUE  NATURE  OF  SERIES      79 

pression  to  expression,  but  comprehends  the  rela- 
tion to  each  other  of  these  expressions.  The  system 
of  thought,  so  far  from  consisting  in  the  bare  con- 
junctions which  are  characteristic  of  appearance, 
is  self-representative  in  that  it  is  present  as  a 
whole  in  every  thought  in  the  series. 

Let  us  take  an  illustration.  "  To-day  is 
Thursday."  That  is  one  of  my  thoughts.  Yes, 
and  this  last  reflection,  the  reflection  that  to-day  is 
Thursday,  is  also  one  of  my  thoughts.  So  is 
this  further  reflection  that  I  made  the  reflection 
that  to-day  is  Thursday,  and  so  on.  The  infinity 
of  this  system  consists,  not  in  the  fact  that 
you  can  go  on  indefinitely  extending  it,  but  in 
the  characteristic  that  every  one  of  its  members 
implies  a  corresponding  reflective  thought  which 
in  its  turn  is  to  belong  to  the  system.  The  true  or 
positive  infinity  of  the  system  lies  in  its  capability 
of  being  adequately  represented  in  the  one  to  one 
correspondence  with  its  constituent  parts.  Thus, 
Royce  holds,  in  opposition  to  Bradley,  that  thought 
can  comprehend  the  infinite,  because  thought 
is  of  the  character  of  a  self-representative  series, 
capable  of  comprehending  the  totality  of  the  series  in 
each  member.  He  says  that  thought  is  not  merely 
relational,  but  that  at  each  stage  it  comprehends 
the  series  as  a  whole,  and  that  there  you  have  got 
an  illustration  of  the  capacity  of  thought  to  com- 
prehend the  infinite.  That  is  his  point  of  depar- 
ture from  Bradley. 

From  this  standpoint  the  series  is  for  Royce 


80  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  m. 

a  totum  simul.  The  entire  determined  series  of 
thoughts,  in  the  instance  above  given,  would  be  a 
self,  completely  reflective  regarding  the  fact  that  all 
of  these  thoughts  were  its  thoughts,  and  containing 
their  entire  genetic  principle.  The  reason  of  the 
fission,  which  is  typical  of  the  act  of  judgment,  the 
establishing  of  a  relation  between  the  subject  and 
the  predicate,  between  the  thought  and  the  mind 
which  is  productive  of  the  thought,  is  therefore  not, 
as  Mr  Bradley  thinks,  due  to  the  impotence 
of  thought,  but  to  the  self-representative  character 
of  its  relational  system.  The  Absolute  must  be 
such  a  system,  and  yet  it  must  have  the  form  of  a 
self  fully  present  in  each  act  of  thought. 

Now  I  cannot  linger  over  the  further  develop- 
ment of  this,  but  I  should  like  to  go  on  to  its 
application.  What  is  real,  according  to  Royce,  is 
individual,  unique,  singular,  the  resting-ground  of 
satisfied  meaning  or  intellectual  purpose.  Of 
course,  he  concludes  from  that  that  there  can  only 
be  a  single  absolute  reality.  Finite  forms,  where 
they  assume  the  forms  of  personalities  or  of  objects, 
arise  only  by  distinction  within  this  unique  entirety, 
distinctions  which  arise  from  the  finite  purposes 
which  the  absolute  mind  contains  within  its  activity. 
He  puts  the  matter  in  this  form  :  Time  is  for  him 
the  form  of  the  will.  But,  consistently  with  his 
view  of  the  nature  of  intelligence  as  a  self-repre- 
sentative system,  time  presents  two  aspects.  We 
are  aware  that  each  element  of  the  succession 
excludes  the  others  from  its  own  place  in  time. 


TIME  81 

We  are  also  aware  that  the  series  of  successive 
states  of  experience  is  presented  as  an  entirety,  as 
a  whole.  The  other,  the  complement  that  the 
finite  being  seeks,  is  not  merely  something  beyond 
the  present,  is  not  merely  a  future  experience  from 
which  it  is  distinct.  It  is  inclusive  of  the  very  pro- 
cess of  the  striving  itself.  For  the  goal  of  every 
finite  life,  he  says,  is  simply  the  totality  of  which 
this  life  is  a  fragment.  When  I  seek  my  own  goal 
I  am  looking  for  the  whole  of  myself.  In  so  far  as 
my  aim  is  the  absolute  completion  of  my  selfhood, 
my  goal  is  identical  with  the  whole  life  of  God.  In 
all  our  strivings  the  attainment  of  the  goal  means 
more  than  any  future  moment  taken  by  itself  could 
ever  furnish.  For  the  self  in  its  entirety  is  the 
whole  of  a  self-representative  system,  and  not  the 
mere  last  moment  or  stage,  if  such  there  could  be, 
of  the  process.  And  this  can  only  be  so  because 
in  God  we  possess  our  individuality.  It  is  as 
a  meaning  in  the  Absolute  Mind  that  we  have 
existence.  Our  very  dependence  is  the  condition 
of  our  freedom  and  of  our  unique  significance.  The 
lesson  of  philosophy  is  the  unity  of  the  finite  and 
the  infinite,  of  temporal  dependence  and  of  eternal 
significance,  of  the  world  and  all  its  individuals,  of 
the  one  and  the  many,  of  God  and  of  man.  Not  in 
spite  of  our  finite  bondage,  but  because  of  what  it 
means  and  implies,  we  are  full  of  the  presence 
and  of  the  freedom  of  God.  Personality,  Royce 
goes  on  to  declare,  is  an  essentially  ethical  category. 
A  person  is  a  conscious  being  whose  life,  temporally 

F 


82  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  m. 

viewed,  seeks  its  completion  through  deeds ;  while 
this  same  life,  eternally  viewed,  consciously  attains 
its  perfection  by  means  of  the  present  knowledge 
of  the  whole  of  its  temporal  strivings. 

You  will  observe  that  E-oyce's  view  of  such  a 
conception  does  not  abolish  time  any  more  than 
the  conception  of  the  self  abolishes  the  distinction 
between  body  and  mere  substance,  or  any  more  than 
in  becoming  you  have  the  abolition  of  being  and  of 
not-being.  These  conceptions  are  taken  up  as 
moments,  to  use  the  technical  term,  into  the  larger 
whole,  which  in  its  comprehension  of  them  and  in  its 
self-comprehension  preserves  them  in  itself,  but  pre- 
serves them  as  put  past,  as  having  another  signifi- 
cance in  which  they  are  no  longer  the  final  form  of 
reality  but  only  a  logical  stage  towards  it.  There- 
fore, with  Koyce,  the  conception  of  the  will,  striv- 
ing in  time  and  yet  conscious  of  the  entirety  of  the 
system  in  which  it  strives,  is  not  a  conception  in 
which  time  is  abolished,  in  which  God  is  reduced 
to  a  mere  "now,"  the  vanishing  point  into  which 
everything  collapses,  but  time  is  preserved  in  it 
as  the  form  in  which  the  will  in  one  aspect  strives, 
while  that  aspect  is  seen  not  to  be  final,  but  when 
more  fully  comprehended  to  be  but  a  moment  put 
past  in  the  larger  view  of  the  process.  God's 
life  is  the  infinite  whole  that  includes  the  endless 
temporal  process,  and  consciously  surveys  it  as  one 
life,  God's  own  life.  God  is  thus,  for  Royce,  a  person 
and  self-conscious,  because  the  self  of  which  He  is 
conscious  is  a  self  whose  eternal  perfection  is 


JOWETT  ON  HEGEL  83 

attained  through  the  totality  of  these  ethically 
significant  temporal  strivings,  these  processes  of 
evolution,  these  linked  activities  of  finite  selves. 

Now  you  will  observe  that  the  way  in  which 
Koyce  puts  the  matter  is  a  way  which  is  not  remote, 
by  any  means,  from  the  view  of  reality  which  I  have 
been  putting  before  you  in  the  course  of  these 
lectures,  and  the  reason  is  that  Royce,  and  for  that 
matter,  Bradley,  have  the  origin  of  their  views  in 
the  doctrine  which  Aristotle  long  ago,  and  Hegel 
more  recently,  worked  out  of  the  true  relation 
of  the  particular  and  the  universal.  One  comes 
back  to  Hegel  because,  after  all  that  has  been 
said  against  the  Hegelian  doctrine,  in  his  writ- 
ings you  have  a  systematic  form  and  an  unflinching 
thoroughness  which  are  not  to  be  found  elsewhere. 
His  system  is  presented  with  a  fulness  of  detail 
and  a  largeness  of  scale  which  are  unrivalled. 
There  is  a  passage  in  Jowett's  Introduction  to 
Plato's  Dialogue  the  Sophist,  in  which  he  gives  an 
estimate  of  Hegel  which,  speaking  for  myself,  I 
should  unhesitatingly  adopt.  "Hegel,"  he  says, 
"if  not  the  greatest  philosopher,  is  certainly  the 
greatest  critic  of  philosophy  who  ever  lived.  No 
one  else  has  equally  mastered  the  opinions  of  his 
predecessors,  or  traced  the  connection  of  them  in 
the  same  manner.  No  one  has  equally  raised  the 
human  mind  above  the  moralities  of  the  common 
logic,  and  the  unmeaningness  of  mere  abstractions, 
and  above  imaginary  possibilities,  which,  as  he 
truly  says,  have  no  place  in  philosophy.  No  one 


84  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  m. 

has  won  so  much  for  the  kingdom  of  ideas.  .  .  . 
He  shows  that  only  by  the  study  of  metaphysics 
can  we  get  rid  of  metaphysics,  and  that  those  who 
are  in  theory  most  opposed  to  them  are  in  fact 
most  entirely  and  hopelessly  enslaved  by  them." 

Well,  we  must  not  in  this  world  of  ours  stand 
still,  if  we  would  avoid  degenerating  into  sterility, 
we  must  always  be  doing  the  work  over  again.  As 
Goethe  says  in  the  second  part  of  Faust  : 

"  Nur  der  verdient  sich  Freiheit  wie  das  Leben 
Der  taglich  sie  erobern  muss." 

"  Tis  only  when  we  daily  strive  to  conquer  them  anew, 
That  we  gain  life  and  freedom  for  ourselves." 

And  so  it  is  in  the  study  of  philosophy.  You  cannot 
stand  still  by  the  side  of  any  one  personality,  how- 
ever great.  You  must  try,  however  humbly,  however 
inadequately,  to  do  the  work  over  again  for  yourself, 
and  thus,  notwithstanding  the  debt  which  the  world 
owes  to  Hegel,  we  have  each  of  us  in  this  generation 
to  try,  if  we  would  comprehend  the  true  meaning 
of  his  teaching,  to  think  it  all  out  for  ourselves,  in 
the  light  that  he  has  given  us,  but  still  for  ourselves. 
Otherwise  we  shall  not  really  make  any  progress. 
The  first  series  of  these  lectures  has  incurred  a 
two-fold  criticism.  Some  people  said  it  was  too 
Hegelian.  Others,  for  whose  opinion  I  have  a 
great  respect,  said  it  was  an  altogether  unorthodox 
interpretation  of  Hegel.  Well,  there  is  nearly  as 
much  strife  and  disputing  about  the  interpretation 
of  Hegel  as  there  is  about  the  interpretation  of  the 


HEGEL  85 

Scripture.  Yet  the  fact  of  the  strife  over  the 
interpretation  of  the  Scripture  does  not  make  the 
Scripture  any  the  less  excellent,  nor  does  the  strife 
over  the  interpretation  of  Hegel  make  Hegel  any 
the  less  a  good  teacher.  Therefore  I  am  content  to 
say  what  he  himself  said  to  the  orthodox  of  his 
time,  "I  am  a  Lutheran  and  wish  to  remain  so."  I 
am  content  to  say  that  I  am  a  Hegelian  and  wish 
to  be  called  so.  There  are  reservations  implicit  in 
both  declarations. 

Now  I  go  back  to  my  text.  Like  Bradley  and 
Royce,  I  feel  that  it  is  impossible  to  be  content 
with  a  definition  of  the  Real  in  terms  of  the  mere  in- 
telligible relations  which,  in  reflection,  are  separated 
from  feeling  as  being  something  different  and  apart 
from  it.  We  start,  I  repeat,  from  within  the  con- 
crete, living  actuality  of  mind,  outside  of  which  we 
cannot  get,  even  in  thought,  and  of  which  the  plane 
of  the  human  intelligence  is  only,  after  all,  an  inter- 
mediate plane  or  stage.  Human  thought,  dominated 
as  it  is,  to  an  extent  of  which  we  are  largely  un- 
conscious, by  human  ends  and  purposes,  compre- 
hends at  a  level  which  is  not  the  fullest  or  the 
highest.  Our  minds  are  before  consciousness  in 
pictorial  distinctions,  in  which  we  figure  to  ourselves 
these  minds  as  belonging  to  bodies  which  go  about 
separately  in  this  world.  That  view  is  not  the  final 
view,  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  necessary  view,  and 
as  such  is  true  and  representative  of  the  degree  of 
reality  to  which  it  belongs.  The  social  purposes 
and  ends  which  have  to  be  fulfilled  in  the  presenta- 


86  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  m. 

tion  of  the  world  in  the  aspect  of  a  society  in  which 
personality  is  related  to  personality — in  which  men 
and  women  are  not  isolated  but  are  dependent  on 
each  other  in  the  family  and  in  the  State — give  rise 
to  pictorial  conceptions  which  do  not  come  upon  us 
by  accident,  but  are  the  outcome  of  phases  in  the 
deeper  self-comprehension  of  the  Absolute  Mind. 
How  that  comes  about  and  its  meaning  I  shall 
try  to  explain  to  you  in  later  lectures.  At  present 
it  is  enough  to  say  that  its  effect  upon  us  is  to 
dominate  our  thinking,  to  throw  it  into  the  distinc- 
tions which  give  rise  to  finiteness,  and  to  make  the 
self-comprehension  of  the  human  being  pursuing 
his  ordinary  avocations  only  an  imperfect  stage  in 
self-comprehension.  Finiteness  arises  from  the 
fashion  in  which  we  conceive  the  mind  in  ourselves ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  fashion  in  which  the  mind  con- 
ceives itself  in  us. 

Like  Berkeley,  we  have  to  put  a  new  question. 
We  have  to  ask  what  is  the  meaning  of  Reality  ? 
And  our  answer  must  be  that  it  means  being  con- 
tained in  and  comprehended  by  mind,  and  has,  as 
an  essential  element  in  it,  being  for  mind,  or  before 
mind.  Antithesis  and  distinction,  such  as  reflection 
is  always  giving  rise  to,  are  essential  for  clear 
knowledge.  Hence  it  is  that  the  understanding, 
the  business  of  which  is  to  produce  clear  and 
definite  knowledge  without  reference  to  the  question 
whether  it  embraces  the  whole  of  the  aspects  of 
Reality  or  not — hence  it  is,  I  say,  that  the  under- 
standing makes  these  distinctions  in  their  sharp 


THE  PROCESS  OF  THOUGHT         87 

forms  by  means  of  its  abstractions.  But,  in  truth, 
even  the  conceptions  which  the  understanding 
makes  use  of  are,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  in  their 
nature  dialectical ;  that  is  to  say,  their  opposites 
are  inherent  in  them.  They  refer  beyond  them- 
selves ;  they  refer  to  their  opposites  and  to  their 
union  with  these  opposites. 

Mind  as  the  Ultimately  Real,  as  what  is  truly 
actual,  is,  by  reflection  and  by  the  abstraction  which 
reflection  brings  in  its  train,  separated  into  the 
aspect  of  mere  thought,  upon  the  one  hand,  and 
the  boundless  hard  -  and  -  fast  contingency  which 
baffles  thought,  upon  the  other.  The  distinction 
is  a  distinction  which  emerges  within  mind,  and  it 
gives  rise  in  the  study  of  mind  to  two  aspects  which 
have  to  be  considered  in  their  separateness,  but 
which,  having  been  considered  in  their  separateness, 
have  to  be  recognised  as  arising  only  by  the  dis- 
tinction which  reflection  makes  within  mind,  a 
distinction  which,  after  all,  is  a  vanishing  one  when 
more  fully  grasped.  On  its  abstract  side  self- 
consciousness  discloses  itself  as  the  movement  of 
thought  in  forms,  in  conceptions,  in  what  are  called 
categories,  which  are  related  to  one  another  dia- 
lectically ;  that  is  to  say,  each  of  which  not  only 
implies  the  next  of  them,  but  implies  the  whole 
series  and  finds  its  completion  and  truth  only  in 
the  entire  series.  You  get  in  that  way  what  Hegel 
called  "Logic,"  the  metaphysical  view  of  thought 
distinguished  abstractly  as  pure  thought,  put  in 
contrast  to  what  is  not  so  distinguished.  Its 


88  ABSOLUTE  MIND  P«T.  ni. 

antithesis,  that  with  which  it  is  put  in  contrast, 
is  a  counter  abstraction,  Nature,  which  again  is 
simply  an  aspect  within  the  concrete  totality  of 
Mind.  This  is  the  truth  of  the  two,  and  therefore 
their  prius.  And  again  I  say  to  you,  what  I  said 
yesterday,  that  to  me  there  seems  no  more  vain 
or  foolish  controversy  than  the  controversy  as  to 
how  Hegel  made  the  transition  from  nature  to 
mind.  He  was  not  talking  of  transitions  in  time, 
nor  was  he  talking  of  making  or  constructing.  He 
was  simply  displaying  his  system  as  a  whole,  and 
the  only  way  to  do  that  was  to  show  how  it  is  of 
the  nature  of  thought  to  make  abstractions,  correct 
them  by  dwelling  on  their  contraries,  and  compre- 
hend the  two  sides  as  merely  distinctions  within  the 
larger  and  final  conception  of  mind  or  spirit  which 
embraces  both  as  moments  within  itself. 

If  one  analyses  one's  own  self-consciousness 
one  finds  that  in  the  apprehension  of  the  self,  in 
the  endeavour  to  fix  it,  one  distinguishes  it  from 
a  not-self  which  is  other  than  the  self.  It  is  my  not- 
self  that  is  distinguished  from  my  self.  But  in  so 
concentrating  on  myself  I  have  made  it  an  object 
which  ceases  to  present  the  aspect  of  the  mind  which 
apprehends.  If  I  endeavour  to  fix  thought  again  as 
something  which  I  can  isolate  and  consider  in  con- 
trast to  what  is  not  thought,  I  have  made  it  an 
object,  as  it  were,  external  to  my  self,  and  so 
I  get  into  the  endlessness  of  Royce's  series.  But 
the  true  view  is  the  recognition  of  the  dialectic 
of  thought  as  the  inherent  movement  which  is  of 


APPREHENSION—COMPREHENSION  89 

the  very  nature  and  essence  of  mind.  And 
when  you  have  studied  that  movement  by  simply 
observing  it  as  it  does  its  own  work,  you  discover 
that  you  have  the  very  characteristic  of  mind  in 
the  activity  which  in  apprehension  produces  these 
distinctions,  and  simultaneously  reconciles  them 
by  comprehending  them  as  belonging  to  a  higher 
unity.  In  that  way  the  method  and  the  sub- 
ject-matter to  which  the  method  is  applied  fall 
together  in  a  fashion  that  obtains  in  no  other 
department  of  human  knowledge,  because  in  every 
other  department  of  human  knowledge  the  mind 
is  in  reflection  distinct  and  regarded  as  essentially 
distinguished  from  the  object  which  it  is  contem- 
plating. And  so  when  we  get  to  the  most  thorough- 
going investigation  of  all,  the  metaphysical 
investigation  of  the  nature  of  Ultimate  Reality,  a 
unity  the  highest  of  all  emerges  in  our  comprehen- 
sion, and  in  that  way  we  escape  from  what  would 
otherwise  be  an  infinite  or  unending  progress.  The 
true  infinite  is  discovered  just  in  the  recognition 
of  the  nature  of  the  movement.  So  soon  as  you 
have  realised  the  nature  of  mind  you  find  that  you 
do  not  reach  infinity  by  merely  heaping  item  on  item, 
but  only  by  getting  the  law  of  the  series  which  each 
member  of  the  series  must  obey,  and  so  disclosing 
the  difference  between  the  members  and  the  series 
as  a  difference  which  has  been  called  into  being, 
but  has  none  the  less  to  be  put  past. 

The  reason  why  mind  makes  these  distinctions 
is  a  reason  which  I  shall  deal  with  in  a  subsequent 


90  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  m. 

lecture,  and  I  shall  show  you  that  it  is  of  the  very 
essence  of  mind  that  it  should  do  so.  But  I  wish 
simply  to  point  out  here  that  this  train  of  analysis 
leads  us  straight  to  what  must  be  the  conception 
of  God  in  which  it  terminates,  God  as  the  finally 
self-comprehended  Reality  of  Mind — the  Last  that 
is  really  First,  Mind  at  its  highest  plane  of  self- 
comprehension.  Our  own  human  plane  of  reflection 
is  the  outcome  of  the  reflection  of  the  Absolute 
Mind  in  those  finite  forms  which  are  the  steps  or 
stages  or  moments  in  its  activity.  -The  logical 
process  can  only  be  set  forth  in  a  system,  and  it 
would  take  me  far  beyond  the  limits  of  these  lectures 
were  I  to  try  to  give  you  an  account  of  the  attempt 
— whether  it  be  more  or  not  we  need  not  discuss 
here — which  Hegel  has  made  to  set  out  in  system- 
atic form  the  movement  of  mind  in  its  self- 
comprehension. 

I  have  pointed  out  to  you  that  the  endeavour 
to  make  these  things  appear  as  simply  movements 
of  abstract  thought,  to  set  out  the  movement  of 
such  thought  in  its  abstract  forms,  however  useful, 
however  valuable — and  it  is  both  useful  and  valu- 
able— is  capable  of  throwing  light  on  one  side 
only  of  reality,  and  that  when  you  come  to  the 
other  side,  the  counter  abstraction  of  nature,  the 
other  aspect  of  mind  which  is  equally  embraced  in 
its  fuller  self-comprehension,  you  find  a  different 
aspect  of  the  activity  of  thought.  You  find  reflec- 
tion there  operating  by  making  sharp  distinctions. 
The  unifying  influence  of  thought  is  not  looked 


THE  PERCEPTION  OF  NATURE        91 

for  there,  because  the  purposes  and  the  ends  which 
the  mind  has  before  it  in  the  contemplation  of 
nature  are  purposes  and  ends  which  are  foreign 
to  that  unification  and  do  not  require  it.  The 
purpose  which  we  have  before  us  when  we  are 
face  to  face  with  nature,  I  mean  the  habitual  and 
thus  unconscious  purpose  which  dominates  our 
way  of  conceiving  it,  is  to  contemplate  it  without 
reference  to  the  subject.  We  abstract  from  the 
fact  that  nature  is  there  only  for  the  mind  which 
perceives  it,  or  as  object  for  the  subject.  We  shut 
out  that  aspect  of  the  truth  as  completely  as  we 
can,  and  the  result  is  that  we  get  nature,  character- 
ised as  it  is  by  sharp  and  clear  distinctions,  in 
forms  in  which  separation  and  isolation  are  the 
order  of  things.  For  instance,  the  apprehension  of 
nature  as  in  space  is  a  mode  which  displays  things 
as  at  the  utmost  possible  stage  of  isolation  from 
one  another.  In  time,  as  I  showed  you  before, 
you  get  a  little  nearer  to  establishing  some  sort 
of  unity  among  them,  because,  while  the  present 
excludes  both  the  past  and  the  future,  it  yet  has 
meaning  only  in  relation  to  the  past  and  the  future. 
Therefore  in  time  you  have  got  nearer  to  the  unity 
which  comes  only  from  comprehension  as  distin- 
guished from  mere  apprehension,  from  reason  as 
distinguished  from  mere  understanding.  A  yet 
more  developed  application  of  reflection  under  the 
domination  of  the  same  kind  of  end  gives  you  the 
aspect  of  nature  as  mechanism.  The  finiteness  of 
such  conceptions  as  the  understanding  here  makes 


92  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [I-**,  m. 

use  of  is  exhibited  in  the  cause,  which  shows  its 
inherent  contradiction  by  passing  over  into  the 
effect,  and  becoming  indistinguishable  from  the 
effect  when  you  think  it  out.  In  the  law  which 
the  man  of  science  finds  when,  putting  aside  the 
mere  crude  appearances  of  phenomena,  he  fixes 
upon  what  is  essential,  what  underlies,  is  a  principle 
in  which  he  passes  beyond  mere  particulars  of  sense, 
and  abstracts  in  a  manner  which,  though  finite,  brings 
him  to  conceptions  in  which  the  foreignness  of  things, 
the  separation  of  things  in  space  and  time,  is,  in  a 
large  measure,  overcome.  In  the  higher  aspects  of 
nature  this  is  strikingly  so.  For  example,  as  I 
showed  you  earlier,  you  set  before  the  mind  in  the 
perception  of  the  living  organism  the  conception  of  a 
whole  which  shows  itself  through  the  metabolism  of 
the  parts,  and  dominates  the  parts,  more  as  soldiers 
in  an  army  are  dominated  by  their  common  purpose, 
than  as  marbles  are  held  together  in  a  heap. 

It  is  only  the  understanding  in  its  abstraction 
that  shuts  out  the  fuller  comprehension  which 
would  come  to  us  if  we  had  before  our  minds  that 
nature  is  there  only  for  mind  which  perceives  it. 
Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  that  our  minds  make 
nature.  We  are  in  one  aspect  parts  of  nature.  I 
explained  that  very  fully  in  the  last  set  of  lectures, 
and  how  it  came  about  that  we  arrived  at  our  con- 
ception of  our  minds  as  particular  things  which 
contemplate  nature  as  through  windows.  But 
the  fact  remains  that  nature  is  there  only  as  the 
object  of  mind,  and  only  for  mind ;  and  if  you  com- 


THE  TWO  ASPECTS  OF  QUANTITY    93 

prebend  that  relationship  fully  you  will  have  got 
rid  of  the  apparently  absolute  character  of  the  hard- 
and-fast  relations  of  nature  and  its  boundless 
particularity.  Even  in  nature  as  the  man  of  science 
regards  it  you  see  the  manifestation  of  dialectic. 
Take  the  quantities  of  the  mathematician.  Take 
quantity  as  you  have  it  in  the  measurements  of 
space  and  time.  Take  the  old  puzzle  of  Achilles 
and  the  tortoise.  Just  as  quantity  always  has  two 
sides,  a  discrete  and  a  continuous,  the  discrete  the 
side  which  is  dealt  with  in  arithmetic,  and  the  con- 
tinuous that  other  side  which  is  the  subject  of  the 
calculus  ;  so  in  the  puzzle  of  Achilles  and  the  tor- 
toise these  two  sides  appear.  You  remember  how 
Achilles  sets  out  to  overtake  the  tortoise,  but  the 
tortoise  has  gone  a  little  way  by  the  time  Achilles 
gets  up  to  the  point  from  which  it  started.  By  the 
time  Achilles  arrives  at  the  next  point  the  tortoise 
has  gone  a  little  farther,  and  so  on,  and  Achilles, 
in  this  view,  never  overtakes  it.  But  just  as  we 
can  sum  up  the  series  by  showing  the  law  of  its 
growth,  the  relation  of  its  parts,  so  we  can  show 
that  there  is  an  ascertainable  point  at  which 
Achilles  must  overtake  the  tortoise.  The  fallacy 
is  the  passing  from  the  view  of  space  in  which  it 
is  discrete  to  the  view  of  space  in  which  it  is  con- 
tinuous without  being  aware  of  the  transition,  and 
the  mixing  up  of  two  abstract  aspects  passing 
under  the  same  name.  But  the  fact  that  you  have 
the  discrete  and  the  continuous  side  apparently 
co-existing,  shows  that  the  movement  of  thought 


94  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  m. 

is  inherent  even  in  the  particularity  of  nature,  and 
that  fully  comprehended  nature  discloses  the 
dialectic  which  is  characteristic  of  every  aspect  of 
reality. 

Thought  never  stands  still,  except  in  the 
abstractions  of  reflection,  and  it  is  characteristic  of 
philosophy  that  it  has  been  occupied  greatly  with 
pointing  out  the  antinomies  or  contradictions 
which  we  find  at  every  turn  even  in  our  most 
everyday  view  of  things.  Nature  is  never  fully 
known  until  it  is  comprehended  in  its  relation  to 
self-consciousness.  When  it  is  so  comprehended, 
and  is  grasped  as  arising  by  distinctions  which  fall 
within  self-consciousness,  its  foreignness  is  over- 
come, put  past.  That  is  how  we  come  back  again, 
by  whatever  road  we  travel,  to  mind  as  the  ultimate 
form  of  reality. 

I  have  now  got  some  way  in  my  analysis,  and 
I  shall  go  on  in  a  subsequent  lecture  to  develop 
the  meaning  of  the  finite  quality  which  characterises 
our  human  minds. 


LECTUEE   IV 

MY  task  in  the  earlier  series  of  these  Gifford  Lec- 
tures was  to  set  out  the  proof  of  the  thesis  that 
the  nature  of  ultimate  reality  is  mind.  In  the  first 
three  lectures  of  the  present  series,  and  particularly 
in  the  second  and  third,  I  have  endeavoured  to 
put  before  you  some  account  of  the  characteristics 
of  mind  and  of  its  content.  In  this  fourth  lecture 
I  have  to  endeavour  to  show  you  how  mind  comes 
to  present  itself  as  finite,  and  the  consequences  of 
this. 

When  Spinoza  in  the  second  part  of  his  Ethics 
has  completed  his  demonstration  that  the  human 
mind  is  part  of  the  infinite  intellect  of  God,  he 
pauses  and  says,  rather  pathetically,  "  At  this  point 
many  of  my  hearers  will,  no  doubt,  stick  fast  and 
will  think  of  many  things  which  will  cause  delay, 
and  therefore  I  beg  of  them  to  advance  slowly,  step 
by  step,  with  me,  and  not  to  pronounce  judgment 
until  they  shall  have  read  everything  which  I  have 
to  say."  Something  of  Spinoza's  depression  is 
upon  me.  If  the  pathway  is  difficult  it  is  not, 
however,  my  fault  any  more  than  it  is  yours.  It 
is  the  nature  of  the  subject  that  makes  it  so.  My 


96  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L*CT.  w. 

task  is  to  set  before  you,  as  intelligibly  as  I  can, 
a  great  conception,  the  work  of  a  succession  of 
great  men,  a  conception  which  we  have  inherited 
from  past  ages,  and  which  in  their  own  fashion 
these  great  men  have  dealt  with  in  its  different 
aspects.  But  for  those  who  would  profit  by  the 
work  that  has  been  done  by  the  intellectual  giants 
who  have  attacked  the  problem  of  the  nature  of 
reality  in  the  past,  it  is  essential  that  they  should 
have  some  clear  realisation  of  the  difficulties  which 
were  present  to  the  minds  of  these  men. 

Above  all  things,  a  sense  that  there  is  a  problem 
is  necessary,  and  that  sense  is  not  one  which  is 
very  easily  awakened.  I  have  pointed  out  to  you 
that  the  great  hindrance  to  the  grasp  of  what  one 
may  call  the  conception  of  reality  which  has  been 
the  common  conception  of  these  great  thinkers — 
because,  as  I  think  I  have  already  shown  you,  it 
has  varied  more  in  language  and  in  form  than  in 
substance  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have  fashioned 
it — is  the  irrelevant  and  unmeaning  metaphors 
which  we  carry  with  us  as  a  burden  on  our  backs. 
This,  I  say,  is  the  chief  hindrance  to  getting  hold 
of  what  the  great  thinkers  have  put  before  us. 
This  was  apparent,  I  think,  yesterday,  when  we 
had  to  try  to  scale  the  precipitous  cliffs  which  have 
to  be  surmounted  if  we  are  to  attain  to  a  view  of 
the  nature  of  mind.  We  felt  then  the  extraordinary 
difficulty  of  shaking  ourselves  clear  from  similes 
and  analogies,  drawn  from  regions  of  inquiry  which 
were  wholly  foreign  to  the  regions  in  which  we 


THE  FOBMS  OF  FINITUDE  97 

were  painfully  toiling,  and  that  burden  it  is  which 
presses  upon  those  who  have  to  climb  with  difficulty 
from  point  to  point  of  these  almost  inaccessible 
rocks,  with  the  constant  sense  of  being  dragged 
back.  Nevertheless  our  duty  is  to  clear  ourselves 
by  careful  criticism  as  far  as  we  can  from  the  effect 
of  that  burden.  The  footholds  are  there  firm 
enough,  if  we  would  only  look  for  them  as  they 
have  been  cut  by  the  great  thinkers  of  the  past. 
After  all,  if  people  make  it  a  reproach  against  phi- 
losophy that  it  is  difficult,  there  is  an  answer. 
Philosophy  is  not  necessary ;  it  is  not  even  a  help 
to  everyone.  Only  to  those  is  it  a  necessity  whose 
minds  have  been  disturbed  by  thought.  The  gulf 
which  thought  makes  thought  alone  can  bridge 
over,  and  for  those  who  have  once  become  con- 
scious of  the  problem  and  of  the  difficulty  of  its 
solution,  there  is  no  other  way  but  the  hard  toil  of 
the  thinking  consideration  of  things. 

Well,  to-day  I  shall  have  to  deal  with  the 
problem  of  the  forms  of  finitude  in  mind.  Now 
the  relation  in  which  man  stands  to  the  mind  with- 
in which  his  reality  falls  in  ultimate  analysis,  must 
remain  an  inscrutable  mystery  if  we  cannot  free 
ourselves  from  the  domination  of  the  category  of 
substance,  an  unnecessary  and  unnatural  category 
when  we  are  investigating  the  nature  of  mind.  Of 
course  if  we  start  from  this,  that  what  is  must  be 
a  thing,  a  thing  which,  if  we  thought  out  our  con- 
clusions about  it,  could  have  no  meaning  except  as 

existing  in  space  and  in  time — if  that  be  the  ulti- 

G 


98  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  w. 

mate  conception  by  which  thought  is  hemmed  in, 
then  it  is  impossible  to  represent  God  in  any  other 
light  than  as  a  substance,  or  to  find  any  intelligible 
relation  between  Him  and  the  finite  mind. 

But  God  is  a  Spirit,  and  those  who  seek  Him 
must  seek  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  It  is  not  the 
methods  of  mechanism,  the  methods  which  are 
applicable  to  the  externalities  of  space  and  time, 
that  can  help  here  or  that  are  in  place.  My  self- 
consciousness  is  an  ultimate  fact,  and  yet  in  its 
finiteness,  as  characterised  in  the  concept  of  my 
particularity,  it  appears  as  my  self-consciousness. 
Now  one  pauses  here  to  observe  that  at  this  point 
there  is  a  problem  to  be  solved.  What  we  mean  by 
the  element  of  particularity,  what  we  mean  by  self- 
consciousness  as  my  self- consciousness,  as  distin- 
guished from  somebody  else's  self-consciousness,  is 
a  matter  which  is  not  thought  out  in  the  usages 
which  guide  us  when  we  employ  this  conception 
in  everyday  life.  A  necessary  conception  it  is,  and 
one  which  represents  the  truth  from  our  everyday 
practical  standpoint.  It  is  not  only  useful,  but 
without  it  we  could  not  get  on,  and,  indeed,  it  is 
the  consequence  of  our  view  and  experience  of  the 
social  whole  of  which  we  form  a  part.  We  stand 
in  relation  to  other  selves,  and  yet  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  thought  out.  Taken  simply  so,  it  is 
plain  that  self-consciousness  has  not  fully  compre- 
hended its  own  character,  and  one  has  to  see 
what  is  the  nature  of  the  distinction  which  it  has 
made  within  itself,  and  which  gives  rise  to  its 


THE  ALL-EMBRACING  CHARACTER  99 

finite  quality  or  appearance.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  of  the  conclusion  to  which  the  train  of 
reasoning  which  we  have  been  pursuing  leads. 
There  can  be  nothing  outside  self-consciousness. 
The  universe,  when  we  reflect  on  it  and  do  not 
leave  it  in  abstraction,  is  a  universe  that  is  there 
for  us  as  object  for  a  subject,  and  its  meaning  and 
development  must  be  a  meaning  and  development 
within  the  field  of  the  object- world  of  conscious- 
ness. 

As  Hegel  somewhere  puts  it :  "  The  universe 
as  it  is  in  and  for  itself"-— observe  the  phrase — "is 
the  totality  of  existence ;  outside  it  there  is 
nothing."  That  is  to  say,  you  cannot  escape  from 
the  closed  circle  of  the  mind  and  its  content. 
There  is  no  meaning  in  even  raising  a  question  of 
anything  outside.  It  is  on  the  basis  of  the  mind 
itself  that  any  such  question  would  be  raised.  Yet 
to  take  a  short-cut  and  to  assert  that  because  I  am 
self-conscious,  and  because  all  the  distinctions 
which  go  to  the  making  up  of  the  universe  fall 
within  my  self-consciousness,  therefore,  I  am  the 
absolute  God — to  assert  this  is  not  only  startling, 
but  one  feels  instinctively  that  it  is  an  assertion 
which  no  one  has  a  right  to  make.  It  is  absurd  to 
say  such  a  thing  of  a  mere  particular  man,  a  link 
in  a  chain  with  a  beginning  that  stretches  back 
endlessly  into  the  past  and  will  stretch  forward 
endlessly  into  the  future.  Such  an  assertion  seems 
to  mean  one  of  two  things.  Either  the  universe  is 
a  mere  appearance,  the  projection  of  a  mind  which 


100  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [Lw*.  w. 

is  taken  as  being  something  here  and  now  in  space 
and  time,  and  that  possesses  knowledge  as  a  quality. 
In  this  case  the  universe  can  be  nothing  more  than 
the  projection  of  a  mind  that  is  a  finite  thing.  In 
sucli  a  light  the  universe  has  no  more  reality  than 
have  the  pictures  which  a  magic-lantern  throws 
upon  a  sheet.  Such  a  conclusion,  of  course,  is 
revolting  to  common  sense,  and  must  fail  to  bear 
scrutiny.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  assertion 
may  be  taken  to  mean  that  in  truth  the  ultimate 
form  of  reality  is  a  correlation  of  substances,  and 
that  the  mind  and  its  object  and  God  Himself,  so 
far  as  they  are  taken  to  be  anything  else,  are  mere 
appearances,  mere  misinterpretations  of  a  reality 
which  consists  in  the  mechanical  connection  of  sub- 
stances. Such  a  conclusion  is  equally  incapable  of 
being  stated  self-consistently.  Both  of  these  views 
are,  moreover,  pronounced  by  the  heart,  whatever  the 
intelligence  may  say,  to  be  blasphemous ;  for  they 
are  the  denial  of  the  truth  of  that  spiritual  signifi- 
cance which  throughout  history  has  been  the  pro- 
foundest  moving  force  in  the  souls  of  men.  The 
conviction  of  this  truth  it  is  that  has  done  more 
than  anything  else  to  arouse  men  to  the  effort  to 
solve  the  problem  which  reason  has  raised,  and 
that  has  awakened  the  human  mind  to  the 
necessity  for  a  careful  criticism  of  its  categories. 

Well,  one  comes  back  to  scan  again,  in  the 
light  of  these  difficulties,  the  final  fact  of  one's  own 
self-consciousness  as  manifestation  within  which 
both  the  universe  without  and  the  universe  within 


MIND  AS  SUBJECT  101 

disclose  themselves.  What  is  the  meaning  of  its 
finiteness  ?  We  have  seen  that  such  finiteness 
cannot  consist  in  this,  that  the  mind  can  really 
be  a  thing  here  in  space  and  now  in  time.  Let  us 
see  whether  we  can  get  on  any  better  by  trying  to 
image  it  under  another  form ;  let  us  try  to  reflect 
upon  it,  to  think  about  it  as  mind,  as  subject  if  you 
please,  in  that  large  and  full  significance  of  the 
word  that  it  gets  when  we  purify  it  as  far  as  we 
can  from  similes  drawn  from  the  region  of  the 
external  world.  If  you  do  your  best  in  this 
direction,  you  will  find  that  you  are  inevitably  led 
back  in  your  investigation  to  the  self  as  the 
final  and  ultimate  reality,  but  not  possessing  its 
final  and  ultimate  form  in  the  finite  self,  as  it 
appears  when,  after  the  fashion  of  John  Locke,  we 
dive  into  our  own  bosoms.  In  that  finite  self  you 
find  at  every  turn  the  evidences  of  incompleteness 
of  comprehension,  and  the  suggestion  that  arises, 
as  you  pursue  your  path,  is  that  if  the  phenomenon 
of  the  finite  self  were  more  completely  thought  out, 
the  difficulties  which  you  meet  with  would  prove  to 
be  difficulties  due  mainly  to  the  inadequacy  of  your 
own  procedure. 

"  The  truth,"  says  Hegel  in  a  daring  sentence, 
"  is  that  there  is  only  one  reason,  one  mind,  and 
that  the  mind  as  finite  has  not  a  real  existence." 
Of  course,  he  does  not  mean  to  say  that  the  universe 
collapses  under  reflection  into  a  mere  point,  into  an 
inert  simultaneum,  or  to  deny  to  it  the  movement 
that  characterises  mind  as  mind.  What  he  means 


102  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  iv. 

is  just  what  I  have  been  putting  before  you,  that 
the  true  view  of  mind  is  the  view  which  goes 
beyond  that  limited  aspect  in  which  it  appears  as  one 
among  many,  or  even  as  my  own  particular  mind. 
The  relationship  of  being  one  among  many,  the 
relationship  of  being  mine  as  distinguished  from 
yours,  belong  to  that  aspect  in  which  mind  presents 
itself  to  itself  as  a  phenomenon  falling  within  its  own 
object- world,  as  a  phenomenon  which  arises  because 
mind  has  made  abstraction  from  the  fact  that  it  is 
itself  setting  up  the  very  distinctions  which  it  is 
contemplating. 

Now  in  our  daily  practice  we  find  some  con- 
firmation of  the  extent  to  which  these  difficulties 
vanish  when  we  confront  them  from  a  higher  stand- 
point. It  is  when  we  rise  above  the  contempla- 
tion of  minds  as  related  to  each  other  as  things, 
that  we  get  rid  of  the  difficulty  of  explaining  to 
ourselves  why  we  prefer  at  our  best  the  well-being 
of  our  neighbours  to  our  own.  But  even  in  daily 
practice  the  same  difficulty  occurs.  Man  is  often 
tempted  to  feel  that  though  as  a  free  personality  he 
has  the  power  of  choosing  the  right,  and  is  respon- 
sible if  he  does  not  choose  it,  yet  that  temptation  is 
too  much  for  him,  and  it  is  unnatural  that  his 
choice  should  be  otherwise  than  the  choice  of  what 
is  lower.  This  is  a  frame  of  mind  of  which  we 
have  only  too  familiar  experience.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  saint,  the  man  who  lives  at  the 
highest  level,  finds,  just  because  he  lives  at  the 
highest  level,  and  his  conception  is  one  which 


THE  MEANING  OF  SAINTLINESS  103 

raises  him  above  the  particularism  of  these 
temptations,  that  they  are  no  serious  temptations 
to  him.  The  greatest  saint  may  lapse;  when  he 
lapses  it  is  not  because  he  has  ceased  to  be  free, 
but  because  for  the  moment  he  has  done  what  any 
human  being  may  do,  he  has  lowered  his  stand- 
point. At  his  highest  standpoint  the  man  who  is 
really  holy  is  free  from  temptation,  because  tempta- 
tion presents  no  attraction  to  him,  looking  at  it  as 
he  does. 

Well,  just  in  the  same  fashion  if  you  have  once 
actually  got  the  speculative  point  of  view,  these 
difficulties  which  seem  so  great,  because  they 
afflict  you  as  his  temptations  afflict  the  saint  who 
cannot  always  live  at  the  same  high  level,  yet 
will  come  to  seem  less,  because  they  are  vanish- 
ing difficulties  from  the  point  of  view  at  which 
you  have  learned  that  you  can  contemplate  them. 
In  practice  as  in  theory  there  are  stages  or 
degrees  in  reality,  and  when  we  once  have  reached 
to  a  higher  stage  in  our  view  of  reality  and  are 
sticking  to  it,  whether  it  be  practical  life  or  whether 
it  be  speculative  contemplation  that  we  are  concerned 
with,  troubles  that  we  thought  insuperable  at  a  lower 
stage  cease  to  be  troubles  at  all,  because  they  cease 
to  exist.  We  see  how  they  arose,  we  see  how  they 
presented  themselves,  but  we  also  see  how  that 
presentation  can  be  superseded  in  a  larger  view. 

I  have  had  to  dig  down  to  the  foundations,  in 
order  to  get  at  the  nature  of  reality,  through  the 
covering  soil  to  which  the  current  abstractions  and 


104  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  rv. 

metaphors  and  similes  have  imparted  an  adaman- 
tine hardness.  Other  aids  than  philosophy  may 
assist  the  faith  that  underneath  there  lies  a  founda- 
tion which  can  be  reached.  You  can  all  be  helped 
by  Art  and  by  Religion.  Your  Goethe,  your  Carlyle, 
your  Wordsworth,  your  Browning,  yes,  and  your 
New  Testament,  all  these  give  the  sense  of  the 
things  that  are  unseen,  a  sense  that  may  be  strong 
enough  to  carry  you  over  these  difficulties.  There 
you  will  find  aids  of  another  kind  to  faith,  the  faith 
of  the  doctrine  that  it  is  not  in  some  remote  other 
world  that  the  truth  is  to  be  looked  for,  but  just  in 
this  world,  seen  and  comprehended  at  a  higher 
level.  And  it  is  not  even  necessary  to  turn  to  the 
poets  and  to  literature  for  this  sort  of  aid.  Some 
of  the  finest  natures,  perhaps  the  very  finest  natures, 
do  not  need  that. 

"  If  thou  appear  untouched  by  solemn  thought, 
Thy  nature  is  not  therefore  less  divine," 

writes  Wordsworth,  and  so  it  has  been  at  all  times. 
And  yet  the  vindication  of  the  truth,  if  the  truth 
must  be  vindicated,  can  only  be  given  by  Reason. 
Art  and  Religion  can  do  much.  They  can  bring 
before  us  vivid  images,  can  lead  us  into  moods 
which  humanity  with  a  thousand  voices  proclaims 
to  represent  the  truth  and  the  impress  of  reality. 
But  it  is  only  the  iron  logic  of  philosophy  that  can 
break  through  the  hard  incrustations  beneath  which 
lies  buried  the  full  truth,  the  completed  scheme. 
When  completely  thought  out,  reality  dis- 


MIND  ESSENTIALLY  SELF-CONSCIOUS  105 

closes  its  hidden  nature,  in  the  light  we  have  now 
got,  as  self-conscious  mind  completely  self-com- 
prehensive, whose  characteristic  it  is  to  be  active, 
and  being  active,  to  be  actual.  I  have  now 
to  show  you  that  it  is  of  the  very  quality  of  such 
mind  to  throw  itself  into  finite  forms,  and  so  to  make 
the  distinctions  and  create  the  aspects  which  in 
everyday  life  are  familiar  to  us,  but  the  unstable 
and  merely  relative  character  of  which  appears 
when  we  take  things  from  the  standpoint  of  what 
has  been  called  reason  as  distinguished  from  under- 
standing. That  mind  is  self-conscious  as  well  as 
conscious  is,  when  we  think  the  matter  out,  a  mere 
tautology.  If  you  analyse  the  simplest  form  of 
consciousness,  for  instance  the  sense  of  feeling, 
there  is  implicit  in  it  a  reference  to  self,  because  it 
is  "  I "  who  feel.  It  is  only  by  an  abstraction,  by 
the  cutting- off  of  reflection,  that  you  ignore  the  fact 
for  the  moment  that  it  is  "  I "  who  feel.  The  full 
truth  is  that  a  feeling  is  always  referable  to  a  self. 
It  is  legitimate  to  speak  in  another  sense  only 
if  we  know  what  we  are  doing.  For  instance 
the  psychologists  tell  us  about  the  threshold  of 
consciousness,  and  they  point  out,  and  point  out 
with  justice,  about  the  aspect  in  which  it  discloses 
itself  under  their  methods,  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  a  subconscious  self,  and  that  there  are 
antecedents  to  sensation  which  do  not  cross  the 
threshold  of  consciousness.  That  is  quite  true 
if  you  are  looking  at  the  soul  from  the  standpoint 
of  what  I  described  to  you,  in  the  earlier  lectures, 


106  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  iv. 

as  presentationism,  where  the  whole  content  of 
consciousness  is  set  out  as  though  it  were  a  series 
of  discrete  events  in  time.  But  that  standpoint, 
useful  and  legitimate  as  it  is  for  its  own  purposes, 
and  constantly  as  we  employ  it  not  merely  in 
psychology  but  in  daily  life,  is  only  a  very  limited 
one.  In  it  abstraction  is  made,  and  is  necessarily 
made,  from  the  higher  unity  of  the  self,  for  which 
the  history  in  time,  which  presentationism  gives, 
exists. 

To  be  conscious  is  to  be  conscious  of  my  self 
as  comprehending.  There  is  no  such  thing  conceiv- 
able as  mere  consciousness  that  is  not  also  self- 
conscious  when  it  is  thought  out.  I  call  it  "  thing  " 
because  such  a  consciousness,  if  we  could  attach 
any  meaning  to  it  at  all,  would  be  a  thing,  would 
belong  to  the  region  of  what  was  external,  and  not 
properly  to  the  self  as  self.  Even  if  we  desire  to 
be  sceptical  we  can  only  raise  our  scepticism  as 
the  reflection  of  an  "  I "  that  comprehends. 

Self-consciousness  is  the  logical  prius  of  every 
effort  of  thought  and  of  every  phase  of  feeling,  even 
the  lowest.  The  task  of  thought  is  to  make 
explicit  what  is  implicit,  and  it  only  fails  to  do  so 
when  it  takes  things  in  abstraction.  Grasp  them 
in  the  fulness  of  their  comprehension,  and  you  find 
that  self-consciousness  is  the  presupposition  of 
every  conceivable  form  of  experience.  Well,  that 
carries  with  it  an  important  consequence.  If  God 
be  mind,  if  His  nature  is  to  be  mind,  He  must  be 
in  some  sense  self-conscious,  One  has  here  to 


THE  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  GOD  107 

guard  oneself,  because  the  idea  of  self-consciousness 
is  infected  by  many  metaphors  drawn  from  the 
everyday  world.  What  I  mean  is  that  the  nature 
of  mind  is  to  be  actual  in  its  distinctions,  and  to 
comprehend  these  distinctions  and  itself  as  their 
source.  This  characteristic  of  consciousness  is  of 
the  essence  of  mind,  and  therefore  is  of  the  essence 
of  God.  We  come  to  that  conclusion  as  soon  as  we 
find  that  the  function  of  thought  is  to  do  something 
more  than  merely  establish  relations  between  things 
that  are  given  to  it.  As  soon  as  you  become  aware 
that  there  can  be  no  distinction  excepting  upon  the 
basis  of  thought,  and  that  beyond  thought  there  is 
nothing,  because  it  is  only  on  the  basis  of  thought 
that  we  can  even  speak  of  anything  beyond  thought, 
you  are  forced  to  the  further  conclusion  that  mind 
must  in  every  phase  be  self-conscious. 

In  self-consciousness  we  apprehend  the  self. 
It  is  of  the  essence  of  self-consciousness  that  it 
should  distinguish  the  self  from  what  it  puts  before 
it  in  distinction  from  the  self.  That  is  to  say,  at 
the  ordinary  level  at  which  we  men  and  women 
reflect,  we  think  of  the  object- world  from  which 
the  self  is  distinguished  as  one  object  and  the  self 
as  another  object.  In  other  words,  when  we 
apprehend  the  self,  when  we  present  it  to  ourselves 
as  distinguished  from  its  object- world,  we  appre- 
hend it  as  understanding  does,  in  separation  from 
something  else  which  is  correlative  to  it,  and  in 
this  way  we  give  it  the  character  of  finitude.  That 
is  how  the  finite  arises.  It  is  the  work  and  the 


108  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L*CT.  nr. 

apprehension  of  thought  which  takes  even  the  self 
and  fixes  it,  so  to  speak,  in  contradistinction  from 
the  self,  abstracting  from  the  unity  of  comprehen- 
sion in  which  the  two  are  held.  Just  as  I  appre- 
hend my  object- world  as  "there  and  then,"  so  I 
apprehend  myself  as  "here  and  now,"  the  centre, 
as  it  were,  of  the  universe. 

Well,  there  again  you  have  in  still  further 
development  the  notions  of  the  finite.  They  spring 
up  upon  you  the  moment  you  begin  to  think  at  this 
plane,  the  plane  at  which  you  are  encouraged  to 
think  by  the  social  purposes  which  you  have  to 
fulfil  as  members  of  society.  These  are  all  modes 
of  what  we  may  call  the  relation  of  otherness, 
which  is  the  quality  of  the  finite.  If  I  fix  myself, 
for  example,  in  reflection,  as  one  among  many,  I 
get  the  notion  of  a  plurality  of  selves  isolated  in 
time  and  for  that  matter  in  space,  and  so  I  am 
brought  very  far  into  the  region  of  the  finite.  And 
the  occasion  of  my  making  these  distinctions  is  my 
purpose  of  leading  a  social  life,  of  living  among  my 
fellow  men  and  women,  of  profiting  by  my  experi- 
ence, by  my  memories,  by  my  relationship  to  my 
family,  by  what  I  have  done,  by  what  I  may  be, 
by  that  chain  of  connections  which  binds  me  up  in 
a  whole  with  those  about  me.  The  purpose  of 
realising  myself  in  that  world  makes  me  insist  on 
these  distinctions,  and  as  these  distinctions  are 
distinctions  all  of  which  belong  to  the  region  of  the 
finite,  the  characteristic  of  finitude  penetrates  deeply 
into  my  notion  of  myself.  Of  course  this  kind  of 


MAKES  EXPLICIT  WHAT  IS  IMPLICIT  109 

apprehension,  however  necessary,  is  a  narrow  and 
limited  one,  because  it  ignores  the  larger  view  of 
mind  as  the  subject  within  which  all  these  distinc- 
tions take  place. 

Mind  not  only  has  for  its  task  to  make  explicit 
what  is  implicit,  but  it  must  do  so,  because  as  I 
showed  you  before,  the  character  of  its  activity, 
the   activity   which   posits   itself,  so   to   speak,  in 
conceptions,  is   dialectical.     That  is  to   say,  each 
conception  is  posited  in  such  a  fashion  that  it  is 
made  at  once  to  involve  a  correlative,  a  correlative 
linked  to  something  beyond,  and  the  whole  is  found 
to  form  a  chain  in  which  the  imperfect  is  taken  up 
by  the   movement  of  thought  into   what  is  more 
perfect  and   more  complete.     Thought  is   always 
active,  and  therefore  it  never  can  and  never  does 
rest  content  in  any  single  finite  aspect.     The  con- 
sequence is  that  the  world  in  which  we  live,  the 
world  as  it  seems,  has  an  infinity  of  aspects.     It 
has  the  aspect  of  beauty  and  of  morality,  it  has 
the  aspect  which  is  dealt  with  in  mathematics,  the 
aspect  which  is  dealt  with  in  political  economy. 
All  these  aspects  of  the  world  as  it  seems  are 
equally    real,   and   what  we  have    to    do    is    to 
determine  their  relations  to  one  another,  and   to 
be  careful  that  we  do  not  confuse  the  standpoints 
at  which  these  different  aspects  arise,  and  misapply 
the  conceptions  which  have  led  to  their  separation. 
They  are  the  outcome  of  the  finite  purposes  which 
guide  our  reflection  on  our  own  experiences,  and 
they  are  the  necessary  outcome  of  these  purposes. 


110  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  iv. 

Well,  the  nature  of  thought  is  not  to  rest 
satisfied  with  any  one  of  these  aspects  or  with 
any  one  of  the  conceptions  under  which  they  arise. 
From  the  very  beginning  the  ultimate  nature  of 
thought,  the  ultimate  goal  which  it  has  to  realise, 
can  be  nothing  short  of  its  complete  comprehen- 
sion of  itself,  and  the  reason  is  of  course  that 
only  in  the  fully  comprehended  system  of  the 
mind  within  which  all  these  distinctions  have 
been  made,  can  their  relation  to  one  another, 
and  to  the  end  which  they  presuppose,  be  ade- 
quately shown.  That  is  where,  what  I  told  you 
of  in  an  earlier  lecture,  the  new  and  deeper  view 
of  evolution  comes  in.  It  is  not  only  in  time  that 
you  have  evolution  ;  you  have  evolution  in  thought, 
in  the  stages  of  comprehension,  and  evolution  in 
which  what  comes  last  in  time  is  first  in  thought, 
because  all  the  stages  that  precede  it  in  time  are 
really  only  fragments  of  it  isolated  by  the  abstrac- 
tions of  reflection.  The  completed  totality  is  the 
truth  of  the  whole  movement  of  the  process.  But 
to  say  that  is  not  to  say  that  the  nature  of 
mind  is  to  deny  the  reality  of  all  those  lower 
stages  and  to  make  them  naught.  The  passing 
through  these  lower  stages  is  part  of  the  very 
activity  of  mind.  Its  essence  is  to  posit  itself,  so 
to  speak,  in  abstract  distinction,  and  then,  in  its 
fuller  comprehension,  to  overcome  that  distinction, 
to  show  it  as  one  which  has  been  made  only  by 
the  abstraction  of  the  understanding,  an  abstraction 
made  for  the  purposes  of  self-realisation  in  the 


TIME  FURTHER  CONSIDERED      111 

form  of  clear  and  distinct  knowledge.  In  geometry 
we  deal  with  figures  in  which  we  have  abstracted 
altogether  from  colour,  from  beauty,  from  weight, 
from  everything  else  except  consideration  of  the 
purest  kind  in  space,  and  thereby  we  get  clear  and 
distinct  knowledge,  because  the  mind  can  con- 
centrate in  this  kind  of  consideration.  Such 
illustrations  show  that  it  is  the  work  of  the  mind 
to  make  abstract  distinctions  in  understanding  in 
order  to  enrich  knowledge,  and  afterwards  to  take 
up  the  distinctions  so  made  in  the  larger  unities 
which  thought  reaches  as  it  comprehends  still 
more  fully. 

Now  I  want  in  this  connection  to  follow  out 
the  illustration  which  we  have  of  this  in  the  case 
of  time.  Time  is  a  relationship  or  form  which 
belongs  to  the  object- world,  the  world  in  which 
we  image  either  things  as  outside  us,  or  the  stream 
of  our  mental  states  as  within  us.  Time,  as  Hegel 
says  in  the  Natur-Philosophie,  is  the  presenta- 
tion of  becoming,  of  what  is  there  just  inasmuch  as 
it  ceases  to  be  there.  Now  see  what  is  implied 
in  that.  The  event  which  is  in  time  is  there  just 
inasmuch  as  it  ceases  to  be  there.  The  reason  is 
that  the  now  is  always  ceasing  to  be  the  now. 
The  now  is  nothing  that  you  can  lay  hold  of ;  before 
you  can  do  so  it  has  passed  into  the  then,  and 
the  next  instant  becomes  the  instant  which  you 
characterise  as  the  now.  That  instant  is  made 
what  it  is  by  its  relation  to  a  future  which  will  be 
but  is  not  yet.  Therefore  you  have  in  time  this 


112  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LBCT.  w. 

combination  of  being  and  not-being  which  gives 
to  succession  the  character  of  the  presentation, 
or  rather  the  attempt  at  a  presentation,  of  what 
becomes,  of  transition.  You  cannot  have  any  fixed 
image  of  time.  Time  has  always  got  this  con- 
tradiction within  itself,  that  it  is  in  the  relations 
of  the  elements  in  it,  the  past,  present,  and  future, 
that  time  consists.  It  is  in  the  deepest  sense  a 
relation  of  finitude. 

Hegel  points  this  out  in  a  passage  in  which  he 
says  that  it  is  not  because  things  appear  in  time 
that  they  are  finite ;  it  is  because  they  are  finite 
that  they  appear  in  time.*  In  other  words,  time 
is  just  the  abstract  form  of  the  characteristic 
which  finite  things  have  of  being  in  a  state  of  flux. 
As  Heraclitus  pointed  out,  all  things  are  in  a 
state  of  flux,  and  so  it  is  with  the  finite  world. 
There  is  no  distinction  which  remains  permanent. 
What  appears  is  always  altering,  for  the  in- 
dividuality of  reality  is  always  disclosing  a  new 
and  fresh  aspect.  It  is  in  comprehension  by 
thought  that  you  get  the  stability,  the  unity,  the 
element  that  is  permanent,  because  it  is  out  of 
time  in  the  sense  that  time  is  in  reality  for  it. 

Well,  as  inherent  in  its  nature,  time  has  got  a 
curious  contradiction  within  itself,  a  contradiction 
which  exhibits  itself  in  the  fact  that  time  has 
always  two  moments,  the  moment  of  the  discrete 
and  the  moment  of  the  continuous.  You  fix  time, 
the  moment,  as  now,  but  in  so  fixing  it  you  find 

*  Hegel,  Natur-Pkilosophie,  p.  54. 


TIME  AND  THE  SELF  113 

that  what  you  are  really  fixing  on  is  something 
with  a  continuous  flow  which  causes  it  to  be  gone 
as  soon  as  you  think  you  have  grasped  it,  and  so  it 
is  that  in  all  investigations  of  time  you  have  got 
these  two  sides  confronting  you.  In  arithmetic, 
which  is  founded  in  large  measure  upon  time,  you 
have  an  illustration  of  this.  I  discussed  with  you 
yesterday,  the  series,  the  self-representative  series. 
Let  it  be  the  mathematical  series  which  we  took  as 
an  illustration,  l+J+£+&,  and  so  on,  extending 
without  end,  but  yet  having  a  limit  in  the  number 
2.  In  that  series  you  have  got  this  curious  result, 
that  the  series  is  endless,  that  you  can  always  go  on 
adding  to  it  a  diminishing  fraction,  and  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  it  has  got  an  end  because  even  if 
you  were  to  project  it  into  infinity  it  never  could 
exceed  the  limit  of  2.  Now  there  you  have 
the  characteristic  which  time  discloses,  that  the 
moments  in  it  are  not  really  exclusive  one  of  the 
other.  When  the  series  is  self-representative,  as 
such  a  series  is,  and  as  the  series  of  my  thoughts  is, 
you  have  the  characteristic  of  each  member  of  the 
series  in  this  that  it  represents  the  whole.  In  this 
characteristic  lies  the  contradiction  which  is  only 
explicable  if  you  understand  that  the  form  of  time 
is  really  a  form  in  which  the  self  comprehends 
itself,  and  grasps  what  it  comprehends  as  the  self 
for  which  time  is,  and  which  in  that  sense  is  out  of 
time.  The  self  belongs  to  eternity  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  word,  but  yet  posits  itself  in  distinctions 
which  are  superseded  in  its  comprehension  of  them. 


114  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L*CT.  iv. 

It  is  the  nature  of  mind  that  it  is  free  from  the 
dilemmas  that  affect  the  object- world,  and  that  it 
neither  stands  still  nor  is  mere  change.  Its  nature 
is  to  be  permanence  in  change  and  change  in 
permanence.  The  whole  mind  is  present  in  every 
act  of  the  mind,  and  every  act  of  the  mind  implies 
the  whole  mind.  It  is  not  a  process  on  which  you 
can  get  any  light  from  metaphors  and  similes  drawn 
from  the  object- world,  because  it  is  what  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  the  object- world  itself.  You  can, 
perhaps,  get  at  it  best  if  you  keep  in  mind  the 
contradictions  which  appear  in  even  such  familiar 
features  of  the  object- world  as  the  time  sequence. 
But  just  because  there  is  the  phase  of  presentation 
on  the  part  of  the  mind  of  itself  to  itself,  the  element 
of  exclusion  by  which  one  phase  is  distinguished 
from  another  is  a  real  phase.  Yet  it  is  not  all.  It 
is  a  phase  whose  nature  is  to  be  forthwith  put  past, 
and  taken  up  into  a  higher  comprehension. 

Now,  the  effect  of  that  is  to  give  us  some  light 
upon  what  the  nature  of  time  must  be  when  con- 
templated from  the  standpoint  of  Absolute  Mind. 
It  cannot  as  so  contemplated  be  non-existent. 
Kather  it  must  be  there  as  taken  up,  preserved  in  a 
more  complete  comprehension.  The  endless  aspect 
of  the  series  is  in  contradiction  with  the  fact  of  its 
limit,  and  therefore  a  higher  standpoint,  for  the 
purposes  of  which  the  lower  standpoint  is  inade- 
quate, is  necessary  for  the  solution  of  the  contradic- 
tion and  the  comprehension  of  the  whole.  And 
when  you  set  to  yourself  the  problem  of  how  the 


THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD         115 

universe  in  time  must  seem  to  God,  the  answer  is 
that  as  God  is  Mind  and  as  it  is  of  the  nature  of 
Mind  to  realise  itself  in  these  distinctions  which  go 
to  make  up  among  other  things  the  time  series,  God 
must  in  His  self-consciousness  include  these  dis- 
tinctions, and  yet  preserve  them,  not  as  a  mere  time 
series,  but  in  a  higher  conception  in  which  they  are 
comprehended  in  the  entirety  in  which  the  series 
is  summed  up,  and  summed  up  in  a  fashion 
of  which  even  that  expression  gives  no  proper 
analogue.  Now,  this  is  a  consideration  which 
throws  some  light  on  the  problem  of  immortality,  a 
problem  on  which  I  shall  have  to  touch  in  later 
lectures,  because  it  shows  that  existence  in  time  is 
not  the  whole  of  existence  as  fully  comprehended. 
For  the  mind  of  God  the  world  must  appear  as  no 
mere  simultaneum,  no  mere  negation  of  change,  but 
as  the  time  series  summed  up  and  comprehended 
in  the  fullest  grasp  of  thought.  It  is  only  from 
such  standpoints  as  those  of  geometry  and  mechan- 
ism, in  which  we  set  the  distinctions  in  their 
characteristic  abstraction,  that  the  spectres  which 
trouble  us  appear  as  more  than  spectres. 

These  abstract  conceptions  have  their  place. 
The  movement  of  thought  which  makes  them 
renders  possible  the  riches  of  the  self-comprehen- 
sion of  mind.  But  it  is  mind  that  we  are  dealing 
with,  and  mind  is  not  inert.  It  posits  itself  in 
difference  and  gathers  itself  up  at  a  higher  level 
than  that  from  which  it  started.  Its  very  nature  is 
to  be  present  to  itself  in  finite  forms.  That  it  must 


116  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  iv. 

do  in  order  to  fulfil  the  nature  of  its  being,  to 
realise  its  own  end.  There  you  have  the  why  of 
the  process  of  finitude. 

It  is  into  the  forms  of  finitude  that  the  Absolute 
Mind  goes  forth  in  the  process  of  its  self-realisation. 
How  plain  it  is  that  if  we  would  contemplate  the 
nature  of  God,  we  must,  as  in  worship,  contemplate 
in  spirit  and  in  truth. 


LECTURE  V 

IN  the  last  lecture  I  showed  you  how  the  forms  of 
finitude  originate  in  the  mind.  Their  origin  we 
found  to  be  finite  ends,  and  the  result  was  an 
illustration  of  the  truth  that  the  attempt  to  com- 
prehend the  universe  ought  to  be  a  search  after 
ends  and  not  after  causes;  a  very  important  dis- 
tinction. 

We  got  some  way  towards  a  view  of  the 
Absolute  Mind  as  not  only  self-conscious,  but  as 
requiring  and  so  conserving  the  finite  forms  which 
it  sets  up  and  transcends  in  the  act  of  setting  up. 
Following  this  out,  we  begin  in  the  present  lecture 
to  get  something  like  an  idea  of  what  must  be  the 
relation  of  man  to  God.  I  may  now  attempt,  on 
the  basis  of  what  I  have  already  said,  a  definition 
of  God  which  may  serve  us  provisionally  as  a  start- 
ing point  for  the  rest  of  the  lecture. 

God  means  Absolute  Mind  conscious  of  itself 
as  completely  realising  the  highest  ends.  He  is 
the  completed  consciousness  which  comprehends 
itself  in  its  completeness  as  the  prius  and  source  of 
the  whole  of  the  movement  that  forms  its  content. 
Do  not  forget  what  I  pointed  out  to  you  in  examin- 


117 


118  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  v. 

ing  the  nature  of  the  self-representative  series  in  a 
former  lecture.  Both  moments  in  the  time  series, 
the  moment  of  exclusion,  and  the  moment  of  the 
implicit  presence  of  the  whole  in  each  member  of 
the  series,  are  if  transmuted  yet  implicit  in  the 
character  of  Absolute  Mind.  That  is  to  say,  in 
endeavouring  to  contemplete  the  Mind  of  God  it  is 
plain  that  we  are  not  to  think  of  time  as  having 
ceased  to  have  meaning,  but  are  to  look  upon  it  and 
its  two  aspects  as  merely  superseded  in  the  higher 
standpoint  from  which  He  must  contemplate  Him- 
self. No  pictorial  image  of  such  a  mind  can  be 
adequate,  for  all  pictures  are  based  on  relationship 
in  time  and  space,  and  they  are  never  complete. 
They  always  suggest  what  lies  beyond  in  time 
and  space,  and  therefore  it  is  not  to  pictorial 
representation  that  we  can  turn,  unless  we  are 
prepared  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  picture,  however 
admirable,  can  only  be  a  symbol  of  what  is  to  be 
adequately  expressed  in  nothing  short  of  the  highest 
categories  of  thought. 

Now  let  us,  furnished  with  this  definition  of 
God,  turn  to  the  nature  of  man.  It  is  plain  that 
man  is  finite  mind  and  that  as  finite  his  mind  is 
realising  itself  at  a  level  of  comprehension  that 
is  not  the  highest  level.  Man's  ends  are  finite 
ends.  Thus  his  categories,  the  conceptions  which 
his  ends  call  into  use,  are  finite  categories,  and  his 
world  and  himself  also  are  presented  as  in  separa- 
tion from  mind,  as  in  hetereity,  the  form  of  what 
people  have  called  "  otherness."  By  reason  of  the 


NATTTKE  OF  FINITE  MIND         US 

domination  of  these  finite  ends,  and  the  conse- 
quently self-limited  action  of  reflection  in  the  form 
of  understanding,  the  content,  cut  off  in  this  way  in 
abstraction,  gets  a  semblance  of  permanence,  of 
being  fixed.  We  thus  become  apt  to  take  truth 
to  consist  merely  in  that  which  we  all  think, 
instead  of  having  a  foundation  to  be  sought  in  an 
answer  to  the  deeper  question,  Why  and  How  we 
all  think  it  so. 

Philosophy  ought  to  be  able  to  show  the 
relationship  to  each  other  of  the  ends  that  are 
finite,  how  they  arise,  what  is  their  order,  what  is 
their  position  in  the  scheme  in  which  the  activity  of 
mind  manifests  itself.  If  this  is  shown  in  an 
abstract  form  we  get  what  is  called  "Logic"  in 
Hegelian  terminology ;  that  is  to  say,  the  abstract 
forms  which  belong  to  the  content  of  the  Idea,  the 
subject-matter  of  the  first  part  of  the  Hegelian 
Encyclopaedia.  This  conception  goes  deeper  down 
than  would  be  possible  in  any  picture  of  mere 
creation,  because  creation,  after  all,  is  a  word  which 
carries  with  it  the  association  of  an  image  in  time, 
of  something  brought  into  being,  it  may  be  out  of 
nothing,  but  at  all  events  ab  extra ;  whereas  we  are 
here  dealing  with  activities  of  thought  dominated 
by  these  ends  which  are  and  must  be  the  prius  of 
any  such  picture. 

The  Hegelian  doctrine,  no  doubt,  identifies 
human  self-consciousness  with  the  consciousness  of 
God,  but  it  does  not  conversely  identify  the  con- 
sciousness of  God  with  human  self-consciousness. 


120  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  v. 

The  greater  contains  the  less  and  is  not  contained 
in  it  here  any  more  than  elsewhere.  Because  it  is 
mind  that  we  are  dealing  with,  no  real  difficulty 
arises,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  over  such  problems 
as  that  of  evil.  One  of  the  great  objections  which 
has  been  urged  against  all  systems  of  absolute 
idealism,  all  systems  that  would  identify  the  mind 
of  man  with  the  mind  of  God,  is  this.  It  is  said,  if 
they  be  true  you  must  attribute  evil  to  God  as 
something  falling  within  His  nature.  Well,  if  we 
were  dealing  with  what  is  to  be  conceived  as  a 
substance  that  would  be  so,  but  we  are  dealing 
with  what  is  of  the  nature  of  mind,  and  I  shall  be 
able  to  show  you  presently  that  the  difficulty  is  not 
a  difficulty  which  arises,  if  we  will  only  be  in  earnest 
with  the  notion  that  what  we  have  got  before  us  is 
not  substance  but  subject. 

Equally  it  is  true  that  the  forms  of  history 
belong  to  the  finite.  That  is  another  reproach 
which  has  been  urged  against  the  standpoint  of  the 
German  idealists,  that  they  identify  God  with  Spirit 
as  it  discloses  itself  in  history.  But  the  forms  of 
history  are  finite,  just  as  the  forms  of  human  mind 
are  finite.  It  is  even  conceivable  that  there  may  be 
finite  forms  higher  than  any  that  disclose  themselves 
in  humanity  or  in  history,  and  which,  just  because 
they  are  finite  forms,  must  turn  out  to  be  inade- 
quate to  the  conception  of  God.  The  lesson  one 
learns,  the  deeper  one  digs  down  into  this  ground, 
is  the  complete  relativity  of  human  knowledge,  in  a 
more  thorough-going  sense  of  the  expression  than 


ILLUSTRATIONS  121 

that  which  has  been  current.  The  way  of  looking 
at  things  of  our  everyday  standpoint  leads  us  to 
anthropomorphism  in  a  fashion  which  is  still 
more  menacing  to  the  desire  to  reach  the  truth 
than  is  ordinarily  conceived.  We  have  to  be 
in  earnest  with  the  view  that  God  is  mind,  and 
nothing  short  of  mind,  if  we  are  to  make  any 
progress. 

Now,  I  shall  digress  for  a  few  moments  from 
this  very  abstract  and  difficult  line  of  thought  to 
some  parallel  teaching.  It  is  always  interesting  if 
one  finds  that  what  one  has  been  searching  for  and 
thinks  one  has  arrived  at  has  something  corre- 
sponding to  it  in  the  conclusions  that  have  been 
reached  by  other  men  at  other  times.  First  of  all 
I  will  take  you  back  over  two  thousand  years,  and 
I  will  tell  you  what  Aristotle  said,  as  the  result  of 
his  consideration  of  this  very  problem.  I  am  going 
to  quote  to  you  a  passage  from  the  Xllth  Book  of 
the  Metaphysics,  7th  chapter,  and  the  rendering 
which  I  shall  offer  you  is  a  rendering  of  a  passage 
so  obscure  that  I  should  have  but  little  confidence 
in  my  translation,  but  for  some  extremely  com- 
petent assistance  which  has  been  given  to  me. 
Not  only  have  I  had  the  advantage  of  comparing 
the  versions  given  by  Bonitz  and  by  Schwegler, 
but  Principal  Donaldson  and  Professor  Burnet 
have  been  so  good  as  to  make  suggestions  as  to  the 
rendering. 

"The  intelligence,"  says  Aristotle,  "which  is 
complete  in  its  own  nature  is  the  intelligence 


122  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L«rr.  v. 

which  has  for  its  object  that  which  is  good  in  its 
own  nature,  and  the  absolute  intelligence  has  for 
its  object  what  is  absolutely  good.  But  the  mind 
thinks  itself  when  it  comprehends  what  is  in- 
telligible ;  when  it  comprehends,  and  so,  as  it 
were,  is  in  contact  with  what  is  intelligible,  it 
becomes  intelligible  to  itself.  So  that  the  mind 
and  what  is  the  mind's  object  are  one  and  the 
same.  For  the  capacity  to  grasp  the  intelligible 
that  is  the  substance  of  reality  is  mind,  and  mind 
realises  itself  or  becomes  actual  in  doing  so.  For 
what  of  divine  the  mind  seems  to  possess  consists 
in  its  actuality  as  distinguished  from  its  mere 
potentiality,  and  what  is  most  agreeable  and  best 
is  the  realised  act  of  contemplation.  If  what  is 
divine  is  eternally  as  blessed  as  we  at  times  are, 
this  is  worthy  of  admiration ;  if  it  is  blessed  in  a 
higher  degree,  yet  more  worthy.  That,  however, 
is  the  real  characteristic  of  the  divine.  It  has 
life  in  it,  for  the  activity  of  mind  is  life,  and  mind 
is  activity.  Pure  and  absolute  activity  is  its  most 
perfect  and  its  eternal  life.  Thus  it  is  that  we 
come  to  say  of  God  that  Pie  is  an  eternal  and 
most  perfect  living  being.  Life  is  His,  unbroken 
eternal  existence,  for  that  is  of  the  essential  nature 
of  the  divine."  You  will  appreciate  at  once  how 
closely  that  approaches  to  the  Hegelian  view 
which  I  have  been  putting  before  you  in  these 
lectures.  It  is  remarkable,  looking  over  the 
sea  of  time  that  separates  us  from  Aristotle, 
how  clear  a  vision  we  get  of  a  great  intellect 


ARISTOTLE  AND  GOETHE          123 

working  out  the  very  same  problems  that  we  have 
to-day,  and  working  them  out  to  similiar  conclu- 
sions. 

Now  I  pass  from  Aristotle  to  another  great 
mind  of  a  very  different  order.  Perhaps  the 
profoundest  critic  of  life  that  ever  existed  was 
Goethe ;  certainly  his  was  one  of  the  most  com- 
prehensive intellects  that  the  world  has  seen. 
Now  Goethe  was  not  nominally  a  metaphysi- 
cian ;  indeed  he  might  rather  be  said  to  have 
laughed  at  all  philosophy.  Many  of  you  will 
recall  the  passage  in  Faust  in  which  Mephisto- 
pheles  interviews  the  student  and  says  to 
him  : 

"  Grau,  theurer  Freund,  ist  alle  Theorie, 
Und  griin  des  Lebens  goldner  Baum." 

Well,  but  although  Goethe  was  not  a  professed 
metaphysician,  and  may  be  said,  indeed,  to  have 
professed  not  to  be  a  metaphysician,  he  was  far 
more  of  one  than  people  generally  think.  That 
great  mind  missed  nothing.  It  had  the  power  of 
taking  in  the  most  different  aspects  of  things,  and 
setting  them  together  in  great  conceptions.  There 
is  a  metaphor  which  Mr  Gladstone  once  used 
of  a  great  Parliamentary  orator  of  his  younger 
days.  He  said  of  him  that  "his  oratory  took  in 
as  vapour  what  it  gave  back  in  torrent."  You 
may  say  of  Goethe  that  he  absorbed  in  their  most 
abstract  form  the  theories  of  science  and  philosophy 
and  poured  them  back  in  the  concrete  riches  of 
his  poetry.  For  Goethe  this  question  of  the 


124  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  v. 

nature  of  God  was  one  which  was  profoundly 
interesting.  If  you  wish  to  see  how  closely  he 
had  given  his  mind  to  it  you  have  only  to  turn  up 
the  Correspondence,  which  is  published  in  two 
volumes,  between  him  and  Schiller,  and  to  read 
some  of  the  letters  in  the  beginning  of  the  second 
volume.  There  is  one  in  particular  which  was 
written  from  Weimar  to  Schiller,  who  was  then  at 
Jena,  on  the  6th  of  January  1798,  from  which  it 
is  plain  that  Goethe  had  been  studying  very  closely 
the  teaching  of  Schelling.  It  is  also  plain  from 
the  letters  written  about  that  period  that  Schiller 
had  been  urging  on  him  the  study  of  Kant,  and 
that  Goethe  had  applied  himself  to  Kant  and 
also  to  some  of  the  writings  of  Fichte.  Goethe 
also,  as  we  know  from  the  Eckermann  Conver- 
sations, saw  a  great  deal  of  Hegel.  To  what 
extent  he  was  influenced  by  the  younger  men 
we  are  not  told,  but  in  his  writings  there  are 
things  which  very  plainly  point  to  the  influence 
on  him  of  Spinoza  and  also  of  the  great  school  of 
German  idealists.  There  is  one  well-known  poem 
of  which  I  will  give  you  a  rendering  which  has 
been  furnished  to  me,  a  poem  which  very  strik- 
ingly illustrates  the  artist's  grasp  of  the  very 
conception  which  I  have  been  pressing  on  you 
throughout  these  lectures,  that  God  is  to  be 
sought  not  in  some  distant  world,  there  and 
then,  but  here  and  now,  in  what  is  present  to 
us,  but  comprehended  in  larger  and  fuller  con- 
ceptions than  any  that  ordinarily  pass  current. 


GOETHE'S  DESCRIPTION  OF  GOD   125 

I  will  quote  first  the  English  rendering,  and 
then  I  will  read  the  poem  to  you  in  the 
German. 

"In  His  name  who  hath  Himself  created, 
And  through  eternity  createth  still ; 
In  His  name  who  summoned  into  being 
Faith,  Love,  Strength,  Activity,  and  Will ; 
In  name  of  Him  whom  each  man  calls  upon, 
But  Whom  in  essence  no  man  ever  knows : 

As  far  as  ear,  as  far  as  eye  can  reach, 
All  that  we  know  is  in  His  image  shown, 
That  image  and  that  likeness  which  suffice 
The  spirit's  highest  inspiration. 
It  speeds  thee  on,  impels  thee  forward  still, 
And  where  thou  wanderest  all  is  fair  for  thee, 
No  longer  shalt  thou  mark  or  reckon  time, 
But  measureless  shall  every  footstep  be. 

What  were  a  God  who  ruled  as  from  without, 
Who  let  the  world  about  His  finger  spin  ? 
Should  He  not  be  in  Nature  self-revealed, 
And  move  and  guide  us  rather  from  within  ? 
That  all  things  which  in  Him  exist  and  live, 
May  fail  in  naught  of  what  His  power  can  give. 

Also  there  is  a  Universe  within, 

And  thence  the  goodly  custom  which  arose, 

That  every  man  should  hail  as  very  God, 

The  highest  and  the  holiest  thing  he  knows, 

Shall  yield  both  Heaven  and  Earth  unto  His  sway, 

Should  fear  Him,  yea,  and  love  Him  where  he  may." 

Some  of  you  who  know  your  Goethe  will 
recognise  at  once  the  first  poem  in  the  collection 
which  he  published  under  the  title  of  "  Gott  und 
Welt"  I  will  now  give  it  in  German,  because 


126  ABSOLUTE  MIND  LECT.  v. 

you  have  it  there  in  a  way  which  even  the  best 
English  version  cannot  reproduce. 

"  Im  Namen  dessen,  der  Sich  selbst  erschuf 
Vor  Ewigkeit  in  schaffendem  Beruf ; 
In  seinera  Namen,  der  den  Glauben  schafft, 
Vertrauen,  Liebe,  Thatigkeit  und  Kraft ; 
In  jenes  Namen,  der  so  oft  genannt, 
Dem  Wesen  nach  blieb  immer  unbekannt : 

So  weit  das  Ohr,  so  weit  das  Auge  reicht, 

Du  findest  nur  Bekanntes,  das  Ihm  gleicht, 

Und  deines  Geistes  hochster  Feuerflug, 

Hat  schon  am  Gleichniss,  hat  am  Bild  genug ; 

Es  zieht  dich  an,  es  reizt  dich  heiter  fort, 

Und  wo  du  wandelst,  schmiickt  sich  Weg  und  Ort ; 

Du  zahlst  nicht  mehr,  berechnest  keine  Zeit, 

Und  jeder  Schritt  is  Unermesslichkeit. 

Was  war'  ein  Gott  der  nur  von  Aussen  stiesse, 
Im  Kreis  das  All  am  Finger  laufen  liesse, 
Ihm  zients'  die  Welt  im  Innern  zu  bewegen, 
Natur  in  Sich,  Sich  in  Natur  zu  hegen, 
So  dass,  was  in  Ihm  lebt  und  webt  und  ist, 
Nie  seine  Kraft,  nie  Seinen  Geist  vermisst. 

Im  Innern  ist  ein  Universum  auch  ; 
Daher  der  Volker  loblicher  Gebrauch, 
Das  Jeglicher  das  Beste,  was  er  kennt, 
Er  Gott,  ja  seinen  Gott  benennt, 
Ihm  Himmel  und  Erden  uebergiebt, 
Ihn  furchtet,  und  wo  moglich  liebt." 

Well,  I  will  quote  to  you  finally  yet  another 
great  man,  and  again  of  a  very  different  type. 
Luther,  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Book  of  Daniel, 
has  given  us  his  definition  of  God,  or  perhaps  it 
would  be  more  accurate  to  say  his  test  of  what  is  a 


LUTHER'S  DEFINITION  OF  GOD     127 

real  conception  of  God.  "A  God,"  he  says,  "is 
simply  that  whereon  the  human  heart  rests  with 
trust,  faith,  hope,  and  love.  If  the  resting  is  right, 
then  the  God  is  right ;  if  the  resting  is  wrong,  then 
the  God,  too,  is  illusory."  * 

Now  all  these  definitions  by  men  of  such 
different  minds  as  Aristotle,  Goethe,  and  Luther, 
are  interesting  in  this,  that  they  fix  upon  us  the 
imperative  necessity  of  beginning  with  the  here 
and  now  if  we  would  get  to  the  nature  of  God.  We 
must  look  within  ourselves.  We  must  take  mind 
as  it  is  and  see  what  abstractions,  what  contrac- 
tions, our  plane  of  comprehension  has  brought 
about,  and  if  we  find  that  by  criticism  we  can  free 
ourselves  from  these  abstractions,  then  the  way  lies 
open  to  getting  a  plainer  conception  of  what  it  is 
that  we  are  in  search  of.  And  so  it  comes  about 
that  not  only  the  metaphysicians  but  the  poets 
have  been  able  to  throw  a  light  upon  what,  after 
all,  is  the  most  profoundly  absorbing  problem 
which  can  occupy  humanity. 

I  now  go  back  to  the  point  at  which  I  had 
arrived.  I  have  shown  you  what  is  the  relation  of 
man  to  God,  that  it  is  the  relation  of  mind  compre- 
hending itself  at  a  lower  level  to  mind  comprehend- 

*  "  Verum  cum  in  Scriptura  etiam  idola  aliquando  Dii  vocen- 
tur,  cumque  Deus  nihil  aliud  sit  quam  id,  cui  cor  humanum  se 
credit,  in  quod  spem  omnem  reponit,  in  quo  fiduciam  fixani 
habet,  quod  am  at.  Si  fiducia  pia  ac  bona  est  turn  et  Deus  verus 
est.  Si  fiducia  ilia  erronea  ac  falsa  est,  turn  et  Deus  nihil  est." 
— Luther,  Commentarius  in  Danielem  Prophetam  (Frankfort  1556), 
p.  200  recto. 


128  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  v. 

ing  itself  at  the  highest  level.  Now  if  that  be  true 
man  must  be  at  once  in  union  with  and  in  separa- 
tion from  God.  If  man's  mind  be  just  the  infinite 
mind  comprehended  at  a  lower  plane,  then  it  is 
evident  that  you  must  have  all  the  indications  of 
unity  in  combination  with  difference.  And  this 
is  because  of  the  very  character  and  nature  of 
thought,  as  I  have  already  set  it  out  before  you 
in  the  earlier  lectures  of  this  series.  The  nature  of 
the  mind  is  to  be  activity,  and  not  only  activity,  but 
dialectical  activity ;  that  is  to  say,  activity  which  is 
always  seeking  to  realise  itself  in  a  higher  truth,  in 
which  it  takes  up  aspects  which  it  had  before  fixed 
upon  and  set.  One  finds  evidence  of  this  in  the 
recognition  made  in  all  ages  of  the  necessarily  pro- 
gressive nature  of  the  human  mind.  You  see  it,  for 
example,  in  the  doctrine  of  the  Fall,  and  of  the 
Atonement.  In  the  pictorial  representation  which 
is  given  of  man's  early  condition  you  have  the 
state  of  childlike  innocence,  from  which  there  was 
first  a  parting  and  then  the  return  back  to  a  state  of 
childlike  innocence,  but  not  until  after  much  that 
was  disastrous  had  been  passed  through.  But 
there  is  a  difference  between  the  state  of  mind  of 
Adam  before  the  Fall,  and  the  state  of  mind  to 
which  man  is  represented  as  brought  back  in  the 
scheme  of  salvation.  In  the  mind  of  Adam  you 
have  childlike  innocence,  no  doubt,  but  it  is  the 
innocence  that  comes  of  ignorance.  In  the  course 
of  man's  redemption  you  have  a  mind  brought  back 
to  God  after  having  travelled  along  devious  ways, 


THE  SIN  AGAINST  THE  HOLY  GHOST  129 

but  ways  which  lead  on  to  a  higher  level,  until 
in  the  end  the  new  dispensation  is  seen  to  be  a 
higher  dispensation  than  the  old.  And  the  reason 
of  this  is  just  that  the  mind  of  man  has  been  in  all 
ages  recognised  as  having  this  double  nature,  the 
tendency  to  alienate  itself  from  God,  and  the 
tendency,  not  less  strongly  marked,  to  bring  itself 
back  again. 

Man  is  conscious  of  separation  from  God  in 
that  he  is  conscious  of  evil.  But  that  is  only  one 
side  of  man's  nature.  He  is  finite  spirit,  and  in 
his  finiteness  lies  the  possibility  of  the  alienation. 
But  he  is  free  finite  spirit,  for  freedom  is  of  the 
very  essence  of  spirit  in  whatever  form  you  find 
it.  Man  can  choose  evil  or  he  can  choose  the 
return  to  God.  He  is  therefore  responsible.  He 
only  does  choose  evil  when  he  abstracts  from  his 
real  relation  to  God,  and  so  ignores  and  shuts  out 
his  higher  nature. 

Now  much  speculation  has  been  concentrated 
in  theological  commentary  upon  the  meaning  of 
what  is  called  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  is  pretty  plain  that  the  idea  underlying  that  sin 
is  simply  the  idea  of  the  man  who  shuts  himself 
out  from  his  higher  nature,  concentrates  upon  the 
moment  of  alienation  and  excludes  the  moment  of 
return.  It  is  a  sin  which  is  unforgivable  in  the 
sense  that  there  can  be  no  talk  of  forgiveness 
for  the  mind  which  does  not  seek  forgiveness,  which 
does  not  seek  by  surrender  of  its  finite  ends  to  free 
itself  from  the  alienation.  That  has  always  seemed 


130  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  v. 

to  me  to  be  the  idea  which  underlay  the  thoughts 
of  those  who  laid  stress  upon  the  peculiar  and 
baffling  nature  of  this  sin. 

But  now  look  at  the  other  side  of  the  picture. 
Man  is  conscious  of  separation  from  God ;  that  is 
to  say,  he  is  conscious  of  evil.  But  he  is  also  in 
potential  union  with  God.  He  is  conscious  of  the 
capacity  to  lift  himself  towards  God ;  that  is  to  say, 
he  has  religion.  When  he  renounces  the  will  to 
live,  his  private  will,  the  will  which  seeks  his  own 
finite  ends,  he  has  made  the  first  step  towards  his 
reconciliation  with  God ;  that  is  to  say,  towards 
the  transcending  of  the  separation  which  has 
divided  him  from  God,  because,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
is  these  very  finite  ends,  which  by  hypothesis  he  is 
now  renouncing,  that  have  so  coloured  his  view 
of  things,  so  dominated  his  self-comprehension,  as 
to  throw  his  mind  into  the  form  of  evil,  of  aliena- 
tion. The  consciousness  of  the  possibility  of 
identity  with  God  is  the  consciousness  of  the  higher 
side  of  his  nature.  Man  dies  to  his  private  self  in 
order  to  live,  when  he  renounces  his  private  will. 
His  ends  now  become  God's  ends.  Keligion  is 
an  affair  of  the  will,  of  a  choice  of  ends,  of  an 
identification  of  the  will  with  the  divine  will.  It  is 
therefore  not  theoretical  but  practical;  it  belongs 
to  the  sphere  of  the  will. 

The  consciousness  of  this  potential  identity,  of 
the  significance  of  the  renunciation  which  is 
necessary  if  we  are  to  transcend  the  endless  chase 
which  is  the  characteristic  of  every  process  in 


RELIGION  131 

time,  including  the  effort,  however  strenuous,  at 
self-realisation  in  a  social  life  in  the  world,  is  just 
religion.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  the  self -represen- 
tative series  which  we  discussed  before,  the  life  in 
this  world,  the  life  in  hetereity,  is  an  essential 
moment  in  the  process  without  which  the  higher 
could  not  come  to  be.  We  have  to  die  that  we 
may  live,  and  we  equally  have  to  live  that  we 
may  die.  The  old  dispensation  is  essential  for  the 
accomplishment  of  the  new  dispensation. 

One  understands  better,  in  the  light  of  these 
considerations,  why  it  was  that  the  chase  of 
psychology  after  the  self,  which  I  traced  out  for 
you  in  the  old  course  of  lectures,  proved  so  vain. 
The  self  of  man  in  ultimate  analysis  discloses  itself 
as  free  finite  spirit.  It  cannot  be  got  at  as  spirit, 
as  subject,  by  the  abstract  and  presentational 
method  of  psychology.  This  was  found  to  con- 
sist in  the  fixing  upon  an  aspect  of  the  mind 
which  was  artificially  set  by  itself  and  preserved 
in  rigid  self-identity.  The  method  of  presenta- 
tionism,  as  explained  and  criticised  by  Professor 
Miinsterberg  in  the  book  which  I  quoted  to  you  so 
much  in  the  last  lectures,  consists  in  the  taking 
of  the  mind  as  though  it  were  but  an  object, 
fixing  it  in  thought  as  if  it  were  but  a  series  of 
feelings  succeeding  one  another  in  time,  and 
regarding  the  conception  so  obtained  as  an  ade- 
quate conception  of  the  mind.  So  it  is  for  the 
purposes  of  psychology  ;  you  must  treat  it  so  if  you 
are  to  get  that  possibility  of  measurement  which 


132  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  v. 

first  becomes  open  to  you  by  connecting  the  series 
so  obtained  with  the  physical  events  to  which  the 
modern  physiological  psychologist  attaches  so  much 
importance.  But  that  is  not  a  final  notion  of 
the  mind,  and  it  is  not  a  notion  which  can  ever 
lead  you  to  any  adequate  grasp  of  the  self.  The 
self  we  can  get  at,  but  only  after  we  have  found 
that  the  process  of  psychological  analysis  is  of  no 
use  for  our  purpose.  If  you  take  the  two  moments 
in  the  presentation  of  the  individual,  body  and  soul, 
and  seek  for  the  conception  in  which  alone  they 
cease  to  be  self-contradictory  abstractions,  you  find 
it  in  the  conception  of  the  finite  self  as  free  finite 
spirit.  Because  the  comprehension  of  the  free 
spirit  is  here  finite,  its  self-comprehension  does  not 
wholly  overcome  the  externality  in  which  it  appears 
before  itself,  if  I  may  use  an  expression  that  I  have 
used  before.  Because  his  plane  of  comprehension 
is  imperfect  nature  appears  to  man  as  a  series  of 
facts  in  mutual  exclusion.  It  discloses  a  want  of 
rationality  and  a  certain  contingency,  inasmuch  as 
he  cannot  bring  these  mutually  exclusive  events 
into  any  relationship  which  will  rid  them  of  the 
foreign  aspect  which  they  present  to  thought. 

But  it  is  only  for  finite  mind,  the  mind  which 
operates  under  finite  categories  and  by  understand- 
ing, as  distinguished  from  the  comprehension  of 
reason,  that  nature  appears  thus  hard-and-fast. 
Hegel  points  out  in  a  passage  in  his  Philosophy  of 
Religion  that  "  Nature  enters  into  a  relation  with 
man  only,  and  not  on  its  own  account  into  a  relation 


NATURE  EXISTS  FOE  FINITE  MIND  133 

with  God,  for  nature  is  not  knowledge ;  God  is 
Spirit,  but  nature  knows  nothing  of  Spirit."  * 

Now,  that  is  a  very  remarkable  piece  of 
criticism.  What  Hegel  says  is  that,  for  the  know- 
ledge of  God,  nature  does  not  appear  as  it  does 
to  us,  and  that  it  is  real  only  at  the  plane  of  self- 
comprehension  of  the  finite  mind.  In  a  higher 
kind  of  knowledge  nature  would  not  appear  as 
it  does  to  us,  would  not  exist  in  the  fixity  and 
contingency  which  characterises  it  for  our  finite 
plane  of  reflection.  The  form,  he  says,  in  which 
you  find  nature  arises  only  in  and  through  the 
finite  mind.  It  is  only  for  the  spirit  that  is  limited 
by  the  categories  of  finiteness  that  the  vision  of 
nature  as  external,  irrational,  and  irresoluble  by 
intelligence,  exists,  just  as  in  the  same  way  it  is 
only  for  the  finite  spirit  that  evil  exists.  The  man 
who  could  always  remain  at  a  high  plane  would 
not  be  tempted.  It  is  only  when  he  lets  himself 
down  to  the  lower  level  that  he  is  apt  to  make  the 
choice  of  what  is  evil.  And  so  it  comes  that  it  is 
only  for  finite  spirit  and  because  of  the  freedom  of 
finite  spirit  that  evil  exists.  Evil  has  no  direct 
relation  to  God  any  more  than  nature  has.  Both 
appear  only  in  the  relations  of  finiteness  and  for  the 
spirit  that  is  finite. 

There  is  another  very  important  passage  of 
Hegel  which  occurs  just  a  few  sentences  above  the 
one  which  I  have  quoted  to  you  from  the  Religions- 

*  Hegel,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  English  Translation,  vol.  iii., 
p.  42. 


134  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  v. 

Philosophie,  and  I  will  read  it,  because  it  may  now 
throw  light  for  you  on  what  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing : — 

"  Another  question,"  says  Hegel,  "  or  what  is 
partly  the  same  question  with  a  broader  meaning, 
is  raised  when  it  is  said  that  the  world  or  matter, 
inasmuch  as  it  is  regarded  as  having  existed  from 
all  eternity,  is  uncreated  and  exists  immediately  for 
itself.  The  separation  made  by  the  understanding 
between  form  and  matter  lies  at  the  basis  of  this 
statement ;  while  the  real  truth  is  that  matter  and 
the  world,  regarded  according  to  their  fundamental 
characteristics,  are  this  Other,  the  negative  which 
is  itself  simply  a  moment  or  element  of  posited 
being.  This  is  the  opposite  of  something  independ- 
ent, and  the  meaning  of  its  existence  is  simply 
that  it.  annuls  itself,  and  is  a  moment  in  the 
process.  The  natural  world  is  relative,  it  is 
appearance;  i.e.,  it  is  this  not  only  for  us  but 
implicitly,  and  it  belongs  to  its  quality  or  character 
to  pass  over  and  return  into  the  ultimate  Idea. 

"...  The  Idea  is  manifested,  but  its  content  is 
just  the  manifestation,  and  consists  in  its  distin- 
guishing itself  as  an  Other,  and  then  taking  back  this 
Other  into  itself,  so  that  the  expression  taking  back 
applies  equally  to  what  is  done  outside  and  inside. 
In  nature  these  stages  break  up  into  a  system  of 
Kingdoms  of  Nature  of  which  that  of  living  things 
is  the  highest.  Life,  however,  the  highest  form  in 
which  the  Idea  exhibits  itself  in  nature,  is  simply 
something  which  sacrifices  itself  and  whose  essence 


HEGEL  ON  FINITENESS  135 

is  to  become  Spirit,  and  this  act  of  sacrifice  is  the 
negativity  of  the  Idea  as  against  its  existence  in 
this  form.  Spirit  is  just  this  act  of  advance  into 
reality  by  means  of  nature ;  i.e.,  Spirit  finds  its 
antithesis  or  opposite  in  Nature,  and  it  is  by  the 
annulling  of  this  opposition  that  it  exists  for  itself 
and  is  Spirit.  The  finite  world  is  the  side  of  the 
difference  which  is  put  in  contrast  with  the  side 
which  remains  in  its  unity,  and  thus  it  breaks  up 
into  the  natural  world  and  the  world  of  finite 
Spirit."*  There  you  have  in  Hegel's  own  language 
the  substance  of  what  it  has  taken  three  lectures  to 
set  out  before  you. 

Now  I  have  discussed  how  it  is  that  we  come 
to  appear  to  ourselves  as  though  our  mind  had  a 
local  position  in  space  and  time  and  were  a  pro- 
duct of  natural  evolution,  because  that  is  the 
meaning  of  what  we  have  been  considering,  the 
appearance  of  nature  as  something  which  limits  the 
mind,  as  the  other,  to  which  the  mind  stands  in 
relation.  The  understanding  fixes  exclusively  upon 
the  moment  of  antithesis  in  the  logical  process. 
It  fixes  upon  the  limitation  of  the  mind  which 
is  characteristic  of  the  finite  standpoint,  discovers 
the  other  of  the  mind  in  nature,  and  then  pro- 
ceeds to  set  in  contrast  to  mind  the  nature  which 
confronts  it.  One  aspect  becomes  dependent 
upon  the  other  and  cannot  be  separated  from  it. 
The  finite  mind  is  conscious  of  itself  as  belonging 

*  Hegel,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  English  Translation,  vol.  iii., 
p.  40. 


136  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  v. 

to  the  object  world,  and  so  as  related  to  nature, 
and  not  only  to  nature  in  the  sense  of  mere  exter- 
nality in  space  and  time,  but  to  other  finite  minds 
which  it  conceives  as  having,  not  only  a  connection 
with  nature,  but  a  local  position  in  it,  as  having 
position  in  space  and  as  being,  like  itself,  the  pro- 
duct of  evolution  in  time. 

The  finite  mode  of  looking  at  things  never 
completely  transcends  the  appearance  of  externality 
that  is  characteristic  of  its  finiteness ;  indeed,  if  it 
did,  our  knowledge  would  be  not  the  knowledge 
of  finite  men  but  as  God's  knowledge.  Yet  its 
concepts,  its  concepts  even  of  itself,  are  altering, 
developing  concepts.  In  the  finite  mind  you  have 
as  its  characteristic  the  dialectical  movement,  the 
process  of  self- comprehension  and,  in  that  sense,  of 
self- evolution,  just  as  markedly  as  you  have  it  in 
the  absolute  mind,  but  with  the  stages  less  perfectly 
separated  out.  If  you  take  the  finite  mind  as  it 
manifests  itself  to  itself  in  externality,  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  child,  let  us  say,  and  trace  it  psychologi- 
cally, you  find  that  this  is  so.  As  I  showed  you  in 
the  first  set  of  lectures,  the  true  view  of  the  way  in 
which  a  child's  mind  grows  is  not  to  look  on  it 
as  a  process  of  piecing  together  ideas  which  exist 
in  independent  completeness  and  are  as  it  were 
brought  in  and  put  together  like  a  tesselated 
pavement  in  the  child's  mind.  The  true  view  is 
that  there  is  a  development  from  what  is  inde- 
finite to  what  is  definite,  the  differentiation  of 
what  begins  as  a  psychological  continuum  into 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  MIND     137 

more  definite  form.  All  this  has  been  worked 
out  by  Professor  Ward  in  his  great  article  on 
"Psychology"  in  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannica ; 
and  I  do  not  go  back  to  the  matter  because  I 
discussed  it  pretty  fully  in  last  year's  lectures.  The 
point  of  it  is  that  the  child's  mind  differentiates 
itself  through  the  course  of  its  experience  out  of 
what  is  indefinite. 

Now  if  that  be  true  we  have  in  it  just  the 
imperfect  picture  in  time  of  what  takes  place  in 
thought.  In  thought  you  have  what  comes  first, 
implying,  as  what  gives  meaning  to  it  and  gives 
it  reality,  the  larger  conception  which  it  may 
reach  only  at  the  end  of  a  process  in  time,  but 
which  was  implicit  from  the  very  beginning.  In 
nature  we  see  stages  in  the  evolution  of  logical 
conception.  We  have  such  stages  in  number,  the 
externality  of  which  is  transcended  in  the  categories 
of  mechanism,  categories  which  import  and  imply 
something  more  than  rigid  externality.  Yet  these 
are  themselves  transcended  in  life,  where  you  have 
got  rid  of  the  indifference  to  each  other  of  the  parts 
in  mechanism,  and  have  reached  the  whole  which 
realises  itself  in  and  controls  the  parts  and  yet  is 
nothing  outside  or  distinct  from  them.  In  like 
manner  you  have  the  spectacle  of  what  is  a  pro- 
gressively fuller  self-comprehension  on  the  part 
even  of  the  finite  mind.  We  can  see  how  that 
arises  not  only  in  our  individual  selves  but  in  our 
social  consciousness.  Take  my  relation  to  other 
people  in  the  world  in  which  I  live.  My  conscious- 


138  ABSOLUTE  MIND  CLECT.  v. 

ness  of  myself  and  the  meaning  which  I  attach  to 
my  own  personality  are  a  consciousness  and  a  mean- 
ing which  grow  as  grows  the  definiteness  of  my 
conception  of  the  other  persons.  The  one  reacts 
upon  the  other.  The  comprehension  of  the  identity 
of  the  self  with  that  other  who  is  recognised  as 
equally  a  self,  bound  together  with  me  in  a  common 
social  whole,  is  one  of  the  instruments  by  which  I 
work  out  my  own  self-comprehension.  The  notion 
of  such  a  whole  is  larger  than  the  notion  of  the 
particular  self  from  which  I  start,  because  it  is  freer 
from  the  exclusiveness  of  externality.  If  I  think  of 
myself  merely  as  MOY  ^confronted  by  a  mechanical 
world,  I  think  of  two  objects  which  I  separate  from 
each  other  as  substances.  When  I  think  of  M  or 
N  as  in  a  social  world  with  duties  and  obligations 
and  common  ties  with  other  inhabitants  of  that 
world,  then  I  have  got  to  a  larger  and  higher  con- 
ception, and  one  at  which  I  am  above  the  exter- 
nality of  nature. 

In  his  book  on  Philosophical  Theory  of  the 
State,  Professor  Bosanquet  has  worked  this  out 
very  fully.  He  shows  how  the  reflection  of  the 
action  of  our  own  selves  in  the  action  of  other 
men  and  women  does  much  to  stimulate  and  to 
develop  our  own  consciousness  of  self.  He  draws 
the  inference  that  every  social  group,  the  family, 
the  city,  the  state,  is  the  exhibition  in  space  and 
time  of  the  totality  of  the  corresponding  mental 
systems  of  individual  minds.  The  social  group  or 
whole,  he  points  out,  must  be  a  whole  gathering 


into  itself  psychical  dispositions  and  activities, 
answering  to  one  another  in  indeterminate  ways. 
The  social  whole  is  therefore  of  the  nature  of  a 
continuous  or  self-identical  mind  pervading  a 
system  of  differences  and  realised  in  them.  It 
differs  from  a  machine,  and  even  from  a  living 
organism,  in  that  the  whole  is  present  in  every 
part,  not  merely  for  the  observer,  but,  through 
the  nature  of  consciousness,  in  some  degree,  at 
least,  for  the  part  itself.  It  is  not  the  less  real 
because  it  is  in  a  plurality  of  natural  individuals 
that  it  is  realised.  And,  like  all  the  conceptions 
of  reason,  it  contains  the  potentiality  of  its  own 
supersession  in  a  yet  deeper  and  fuller  conception. 
Purpose,  the  seeking  to  fulfil  definite  ends,  has 
brought  it  about.  Deeper  purposes  and  larger  ends 
point  us  to  a  continuation  that  goes  beyond  it. 

Now  that  is  the  analysis  of  a  philosopher.  Let 
me  contrast  it  with  the  same  conclusion  reached  by 
one  who  was  not  a  professed  philosopher  and 
whom  I  have  quoted  before,  Carlyle.  I  shall  just 
take  a  few  sentences  from  Sartor  Resartus, 
because  they  very  strikingly  illustrate  the  way  in 
which  Carlyle  had  come  to  much  the  same  view 
of  the  nature  of  the  relation  of  man  to  the  social 
whole  as  has  Professor  Bosanquet,  and  as  have  those 
who  have  maintained  the  thesis  which  is  the  subject 
of  these  lectures. 

"Of  man's  Activity  and  Attainment,"  says 
Carlyle  in  the  8th  chapter  of  the  Second  Book  of 
Sartor  Resartus,  "the  chief  results  are  aeriform, 


140  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  v. 

mystic,  and  preserved  in  Tradition  only :  such  are 
his  Forms  of  Government,  with  the  Authority  they 
rest  on ;  his  Customs,  or  Fashions  both  of  Cloth- 
habits  and  of  Soul-habits ;  much  more  his  collective 
stock  of  Handicrafts,  the  whole  Faculty  he  has 
acquired  of  manipulating  Nature  :  all  these  things, 
as  indispensable  and  priceless  as  they  are,  cannot 
in  any  way  be  fixed  under  lock  and  key,  but  must 
flit,  spirit-like,  on  impalpable  vehicles,  from  Father 
to  Son ;  if  you,  demand  sight  of  them,  they  are 
nowhere  to  be  met  with.  Visible  Ploughmen  and 
Hammermen  there  have  been,  even  from  Cain  and 
Tubal-Cain  downwards :  but  where  does  your 
accumulated  Agricultural,  Metallurgic,  and  other 
Manufacturing  Skill  lie  warehoused.  It  transmits 
itself  on  the  atmospheric  air,  on  the  Sun's  rays  (by 
Hearing  and  Vision)  ;  it  is  a  thing  aeriform,  im- 
palpable, of  quite  spiritual  sort.  In  like  manner 
ask  me  not,  Where  are  the  Laws;  where  is  the 
Government  ?  In  vain  wilt  thou  go  to  Schonbrunn, 
to  Downing  Street,  to  the  Palais  Bourbon :  thou 
findest  nothing  there  but  brick  or  stone  houses, 
and  some  bundles  of  papers,  tied  with  tape. 
Where  then  is  that  same  cunningly  devised  al- 
mighty Government  of  theirs  to  be  laid  hands  on  ? 
Everywhere  yet  nowhere  :  seen  only  in  its  works, 
this  too  is  a  thing  aeriform,  invisible  ;  or  if  you  will, 
mystic  and  miraculous.  So  spiritual  (geistig)  is 
our  whole  daily  Life  :  all  that  we  do  springs  out  of 
Mystery,  Spirit,  Invisible  Force ;  only  like  a  little 
Cloud-image,  or  Armida's  Palace,  air-built,  does 


FURTHER  ILLUSTRATIONS         141 

the  Actual  body  itself  forth  from  the  great  mystic 
Deep."* 

Well,  there  you  come  very  near  to  language 
which  might  be  the  language  of  any  metaphysician, 
and  yet  it  is  the  language  of  one  who  was  observ- 
ing in  the  concrete,  and  expressing  merely  the 
reflections  which  a  historian,  who  was  at  the  same 
time  a  poet,  would  make  upon  what  passed  before 
him. 

I  will  conclude  this  lecture  by  quoting  to  you, 
in  his  own  words,  something  else  that  Professor 
Bosanquet  has  said,  because  it  is  something  that 
points  us  to  what  lies  beyond  even  the  ends  and 
purposes  which  are  embodied  in  the  social  whole. 

"  We  have  taken,"  he  says,  "  Society  and  the 
State  throughout  to  have  their  value  in  the  human 
capacities  which  they  are  the  means  of  realising,  in 
which  realisation  their  social  aspect  is  an  inevitable 
condition  (for  human  nature  is  not  complete  in  soli- 
tude), but  is  not,  by  itself,  in  its  form  of  multitudes, 
the  end.  There  is,  therefore,  no  breach  of  continuity 
when  the  immediate  participation  of  numbers,  the 
direct  moulding  of  life  by  the  claims  and  relations 
of  selves,  falls  away,  and  the  human  mind,  consoli- 
dated and  sustained  by  society,  goes  further  on  its 
path  in  removing  contradictions  and  shaping  its 
world  and  itself  into  unity.  Art,  philosophy,  and 
religion,  though  in  a  sense  the  very  life-blood  of 
society,  are  not  and  could  not  be  directly  fashioned 
to  meet  the  needs  and  uses  of  the  multitude,  and 

*  Carlyle,  Sartor  Resartus,  Book  II.,  Ch.  8. 


142  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LOT.  v. 

their  aim  is  not  in  that  sense  'social.'  They 
should  rather  be  regarded  as  a  continuation,  within 
and  founded  on  the  Commonwealth,  of  the  work 
which  the  Commonwealth  begins  in  realising 
human  nature ;  as  fuller  utterances  of  the  same 
universal  self  which  the  '  general  will '  reveals  in 
more  precarious  forms ;  and  as  in  the  same  sense 
implicit  in  the  consciousness  of  all,  being  an  in- 
heritance which  is  theirs  so  far  as  they  can  take 
possession  of  it."  * 

*  Bosanquet,  Philosophical  Theory  of  the  State,  pp.  332,  333. 


LECTURE  VI 

I  WILL  begin  this  lecture  by  answering  a  question 
which  has  been  put  to  me  by  one  of  my  audience. 
I  am  asked  to  explain  how  I  understand  self-con- 
sciousness to  exist  apart  from  actual  physical  brain- 
cells,  changes  within  which  are  to  be  held  re- 
sponsible for  all  mind  activity.  Well,  I  dealt  with 
that  question  at  some  length  in  the  first  six  lectures 
of  the  last  series,  and  the  point  of  the  answer 
which  I  then  gave  was  this.  All  competent  thinkers 
agree  that  you  cannot  stop  with  the  mere  picture 
of  thought  as  a  function  of  the  brain.  The  brain 
and  the  whole  of  the  external  world  as  it  appears 
in  space  and  time  are  only  there,  in  the  deepest 
sense  at  all  events,  in  the  mind  or  for  the  mind 
that  perceives  them.  That  was  what  Berkeley  and 
Mill  taught,  and  what  men  like  Mr  Herbert  Spencer 
teach,  and  the  true  controversy  that  arises  is  as  to 
what  brings  about  the  appearance  of  objectivity  or 
reality  which  this  picture  presents.  I  took  Mill  as 
my  text  in  the  lectures  to  which  I  allude,  and  I 
showed  you  how  Mill  brings  you  to  the  conclusion 
that  it  is  in  the  fact  that  we  must  so  think  these 
things  that  we  find  what  we  mean  by  their  reality. 


148 


144  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L.CT.  vi. 

I  pointed  out  to  you  that  this  analysis  was  one 
which  did  not  go  deep  enough,  but  that  it  at  all 
events  dispelled  the  notion  that  thought  could  be 
regarded  merely  as  a  function  or  product  of  the 
brain.  It  is  quite  true  that  in  a  certain  way  we  do 
regard  and  must  regard  our  minds  as  in  time  and 
as  conditioned  by  a  body  which  exists  in  space  and 
time,  but  that  view  of  the  relationship  belongs  only 
to  the  picture  which  we  have,  as  it  were,  painted 
for  ourselves,  and  it  is  the  hard-and-fastness  of  that 
picture  which  these  lectures  were  directed  to  explain. 
I  took  an  illustration,  which  perhaps  is  not  a  bad 
one  upon  this  point,  the  illustration  of  the  stereo- 
scope. You  look  through  the  stereoscope  at  a  flat 
piece  of  paper,  and  the  lines  which  have  been 
arranged  on  it  stand  out  as  if  they  were  in  three 
dimensions,  instead  of  merely  in  two  as  we  know 
they  are.  Now,  everybody  who  looks  through  the 
stereoscope  has  the  same  conviction,  that  the  lines 
are  standing  out  in  three  dimensions.  That  is 
because  everybody  who  looks  through  the  stereo- 
scope under  the  influence  of  suggestion  thinks 
things  in  the  same  way,  but  abstracts  from  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  his  knowledge  arises.  He 
ignores  the  relation  which  would  account  for  that 
abnormal  presentation,  and  that  is  how  he  falls 
into  the  mistake  of  taking  it  to  represent  reality. 
In  other  words,  he  has  not  fully  comprehended 
what  is  the  object  of  his  contemplation.  Well,  in 
the  same  way  we  form  a  picture  of  the  mind  as 
dependent  on  and  contained  by  a  body,  a  picture 


SOUL  AND  BODY  145 

the  origin  of  which  we  do  not  fully  comprehend. 
It  is  quite  right  that  we  should  form  such  a  picture  ; 
it  is  the  picture  which  we  have  to  form  in  order  to 
fulfil  the  purposes  which  are  ours  in  our  everyday 
intercourse  with  our  fellow  human  beings.  But  the 
picture  of  the  world  that  is  ours  and  our  fellow 
human  beings'  is  a  picture  which  has  grown  in  its 
definiteness  in  a  fashion  akin  to  the  picture  which  we 
get  through  the  stereoscope.  Therefore  my  answer 
to  my  questioner  is  that  while  this  view  is  not  only 
a  legitimate  one  for  everyday  life,  but  the  view  which 
we  adopt  in  psychological  investigation,  it  is  a  view 
which  is  abstract,  and  that  its  abstractness  arises 
from  this,  that  the  mind  in  making  it  has  not  fully 
comprehended  it  own  operation.  I  should  like  to 
be  able  to  follow  out  this  topic,  but  were  I  to  do 
so  it  would  land  me  in  anthropology  and  psychology, 
and  it  would  take  six  lectures  at  least  to  trace  out 
the  whole  of  the  reasons  why  the  mind  comes  to 
present  itself  to  itself  in  the  form  of  something  con- 
ditioned by  a  body.  I  have  touched  on  it  in  some 
of  the  lectures  in  this  series,  but  those  of  you  who 
wish  to  follow  the  subject  further,  and  who  read 
German,  cannot  do  better  than  turn  to  a  book — a 
short  book  of  about  130  pages — which  was  written 
by  Erdmann  on  the  subject,  under  the  title  Leib  und 
Seele,  and  which  has  been  re-edited  by  a  Dutch 
professor,  Professor  Boland.  It  is  plain  from  Pro- 
fessor Boland's  Introduction  to  that  book  that 
whether  Hegelianism  is  alive  in  Germany  or  not 

it  is  very  much  alive  in  Holland,  and  the  book,  to 

K 


146  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  «. 

which  he  has  contributed  some  valuable  notes,  is 
the  most  modern  exposition  I  know  of  the  Hegelian 
position  on  this  point. 

Now  I  come  back  to  my  topic.  In  the  last 
lecture  which  I  delivered  I  pointed  out  to  you  that 
great  thinkers  of  the  most  various  types  had  been 
in  accord  with  the  conclusions  to  which  I  was 
leading  you.  I  showed  you  that  Aristotle  and 
Goethe,  approaching  the  subject  in  entirely  different 
fashions,  had  arrived  at  what  was  in  substance  a 
common  result.  Now,  to  some  of  you  it  may  seem 
depressing  that  after  two  thousand  years  of  work 
we  should  be  going  back  to  Aristotle,  and  discover- 
ing that  he  had  found  out  these  things  long  ago. 
But  there  is  another  side  to  that  reflection.  It  is 
comforting  to  think  that  the  truth  is  nothing  so 
buried  away  that  the  human  intelligence  has  not 
been  able  to  get  at  it.  It  is  a  satisfaction  that  the 
great  thinkers,  in  their  diverse  investigations  into 
the  meaning  of  reality,  have  arrived  at  substantially 
the  same  result  as  to  its  ultimate  nature.  That 
gives  you  the  sense  that  the  ground  is  more  solid 
than  people  sometimes  make  out.  There  is  another 
consideration  which  must  be  borne  in  mind  by  those 
who  think  that  there  ought  to  be  the  same  sort  of 
progress  in  philosophy  that  there  is  in  science.  In 
science  the  results  which  are  reached  by  one 
generation  are  often  superseded  by  the  further 
results  obtained  by  a  subsequent  generation.  Much 
of  what  even  Newton  taught  us  is  no  longer  suffi- 
cient, for  mathematics  and  physics  have  now  got 


ART  147 

further  than  Newton  had  got.  But  that  arises  from 
the  character  of  what  science  has  to  deal  with. 
Science  investigates — I  am  taking  science  in  its 
narrower  sense — the  relations  of  things  in  space 
and  time,  and  because  it  is  carrying  out  the  investi- 
gation of  relations  in  space  and  time  it  is  dealing 
with  a  field  in  which  an  endless  progress  is  inevit- 
able. There  is  no  limit  to  space,  there  is  no  limit 
to  time,  considered  as  stretched  out  before  us,  and 
therefore  there  is  no  end  to  the  possibilities  of  an 
inquiry  conducted  progressively  into  the  content  of 
that  world  which  is  stretched  out  in  space  and  in 
time.  You  are  always  adding  to  your  knowledge, 
and  your  method  cannot  sum  up  the  series. 

But  there  is  another  department  of  the  mind 
where  what  you  meet  with  is  quite  different  in 
character.  In  art  you  deal  with  the  concrete 
immediacy  that  confronts  you.  You  do  not  try  to 
break  things  up  into  abstract  relations  ;  you  try  to 
grasp  what  is  highest  in  the  world  as  it  seems,  and 
to  present  it  at  the  highest  level  that  the  human 
mind  is  capable  of.  That  is  done,  not  by  analysis, 
but  by  the  insight  of  genius,  when  you  have  art  in 
its  highest  form,  and  the  result  is  that  it  is  done 
once  for  all.  We  do  not  expect  that  the  progress  of 
another  two  thousand  years  will  enable  the  human 
intelligence  to  produce  anything  greater  of  its  kind 
than  a  Dante,  or  a  Shakespeare,  or  a  Milton  has 
given  to  us.  They  have  shown  us  what  the  aperpu 
of  the  human  mind  at  its  highest  can  amount  to. 
We  do  not  ask  that  what  they  have  done  should 


148  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L^cx.  vr. 

be  superseded,  because  we  see  that  it  is  individual 
and  cannot  recur. 

Well,  philosophy  stands  midway  between  science 
and  art.  It  too,  like  art,  is  not  concerned  with  the 
endless  progress  of  space  and  time  relations.  But, 
unlike  art,  its  business  is  to  comprehend  in  the 
forms  of  abstract  thought,  and  consequently  it 
occupies  an  intermediate  position,  a  position  in 
which  it  has,  as  it  were,  to  deal  with  a  series,  but 
to  deal  with  it  upon  the  side  of  its  summing  up. 
And  in  that  way  philosophy,  while  it  discloses 
progress,  can  disclose  it  only  in  the  form  of  an 
increasingly  complete  grasp  of  the  conception  of 
reality  which  its  great  founders  have  fashioned  out. 

The  history  of  philosophy  is  indeed  no  vain 
succession  of  system  succeeded  by  system  and 
thrown  aside  as  if  it  had  not  been.  We  witness  in 
this  history  the  progressive  deepening  of  the  grasp 
which  the  human  mind  has  got  upon  the  nature  of 
reality ;  we  see  the  evolution  of  a  conception  in 
which  past  systems  are  not  left  behind  as  they 
would  be  on  a  journey  through  the  world,  but  in 
which  what  is  true  in  these  past  systems  is  taken  up 
and  preserved  in  those  that  succeed  them. 

Well,  that  is  a  reflection  which  may  give  some 
comfort  to  those  who  despair  of  philosophy.  Phi- 
losophy is  really  the  study  of  the  self-comprehen- 
sion of  the  mind,  and  its  subject  is  neither  the 
endless  progress  which  you  have  in  science,  nor  the 
immediacy  and  individuality  of  the  sense  pictures 
with  which  art  deals. 


HEGEL  ON  THE  WORK  OF  MIND   149 

Now  I  want  to  sum  up,  because  I  think  it  may 
make  a  little  more  clear  to  you  what  I  have  been 
doing,  the  result  of  the  standpoint  which  I  have 
been  seeking  to  suggest  to  you,  in  other  words  than 
my  own,  and  I  am  going  to  take  a  passage- — or 
rather  two  passages — from  Hegel  and  to  give  you 
in  his  own  words  what  his  view  of  the  work  of 
philosophy  is.  "  The  world,"  he  says,  "  into  whose 
depths  thought  penetrates  is  a  supra-sensuous  world, 
which  is  thus,  to  begin  with,  erected  as  a  beyond 
over  against  immediate  consciousness  and  present 
sensation ;  the  power  which  thus  rescues  itself  from 
the  here  that  consists  in  the  actuality  and  finiteness 
of  sense,  is  the  freedom  of  thought  in  knowledge. 
But  the  mind  is  able  to  heal  this  schism  which  its 
advance  creates ;  it  generates,"  and  here  he  is 
speaking  of  a  particular  phase  of  it,  "  out  of  itself 
the  works  of  fine  art  as  the  first  middle  term  of 
reconciliation  between  pure  thought  and  what  is 
external,  sensuous,  and  transitory,  between  nature, 
with  its  finite  actuality,  and  the  infinite  freedom  of 
the  reason  that  comprehends." 

Then  he  goes  on  in  a  passage  later  in  the  same 
book  to  say  this  : —  t 

"The  modern  moralistic  view  starts  from  the 
fixed  antithesis  of  the  will  in  its  spiritual  universality 
to  its  sensuous  natural  particularity,  and  consists, 
not  in  the  completed  reconciliation  of  these  con- 
trasted sides,  but  in  their  conflict  with  one  another, 

*  Hegel,  Introduction  to  Philosophy  of  Fine  Art,  Bosanquet's 
Translation,  p.  13.  t  Ibid.,  p.  101. 


150  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  vi. 

which  involves  the  requirement  that  the  impulses 
which  conflict  with  duty  ought  to  yield  to  it.  This 
antithesis  does  not  merely  display  itself  for  our 
consciousness  in  the  limited  region  of  moral  action  ; 
but  also  emerges  as  a  fundamental  distinction  and 
antagonism  between  that  which  is  essentially  and  in 
its  own  right,  and  that  which  is  external  reality  and 
existence.  Formulated  in  the  abstract,  it  is  the 
contrast  of  the  universal  and  particular  when  the 
former  is  explicitly  fixed  over  against  the  latter, 
just  as  the  latter  is  over  against  the  former ;  more 
concretely,  it  appears  in  nature  as  the  opposition  of 
the  abstract  law  against  the  abundance  of  individual 
phenomena,  each  having  its  own  character ;  in  the 
mind  as  the  sensuous  and  spiritual  in  man,  as  the 
battle  of  the  spirit  against  the  flesh,  of  duty  for 
duty's  sake,  the  cold  command,  with  the  individual 
interest,  the  sensuous  inclinations  and  impulses,  the 
individual  disposition  as  such ;  as  the  hard  conflict 
of  inward  freedom  and  of  natural  conception — 
empty  in  itself  —  compared  with  full  concrete 
vitality ;  or  of  theory  and  subjective  thought  con- 
trasted with  objective  existence  and  experience. 

"These  are  antitheses  which  have  not  been 
invented  either  by  the  subtlety  of  reflection  or  by 
the  pedantry  of  philosophy,  but  which  have  from 
all  time  and  in  manifold  forms  preoccupied  and 
disquieted  the  human  consciousness,  although  it 
was  modern  culture  that  elaborated  them  most 
distinctly,  and  forced  them  up  to  the  point  of  most 
unbending  contradiction.  Intellectual  culture  and 


HEGEL  CONTINUED  151 

the  modern  play  of  understanding  create  in  man 
this  contrast,  which  makes  him  an  amphibious 
animal,  inasmuch  as  it  sets  him  to  live  in  two 
contradictory  worlds  at  once ;  so  that  even  con- 
sciousness wanders  back  and  forwards  in  this 
contradiction,  and,  shuttle-cocked  from  side  to  side, 
is  unable  to  satisfy  itself  as  itself  on  one  side  or 
the  other.  For,  on  the  one  side,  we  see  man  a 
prisoner  in  common  reality  and  earthly  temporality, 
oppressed  by  want  and  poverty,  hard  driven  by 
nature,  entangled  in  matter,  in  sensuous  aims  and 
their  enjoyments ;  on  the  other  side,  he  exalts 
himself  to  eternal  ideas,  to  a  realm  of  thought  and 
freedom,  imposes  on  himself  as  a  will  universal 
laws  and  attributions,  strips  his  world  of  its  living 
and  nourishing  reality,  and  dissolves  it  into  abstrac- 
tions, inasmuch  as  the  mind  is  put  upon  vindicating 
its  rights  and  its  dignity  simply  by  denying  the 
rights  of  nature  and  maltreating  it,  thereby  retaliat- 
ing the  oppression  and  violence  which  itself  has 
experienced  from  nature.  Such  a  discrepancy  in 
life  and  consciousness  involves  for  modern  culture 
and  its  understanding  the  demand  that  the  con- 
tradiction should  be  resolved.  Yet  the  under- 
standing cannot  release  itself  from  the  fixity  of 
these  antitheses.  The  solution,  therefore,  remains 
for  consciousness  a  mere  ought,  and  the  present 
and  reality  only  stir  themselves  in  the  unrest  of  a 
perpetual  to  and  fro,  which  seeks  a  reconciliation 
without  finding  it.  Thus  the  question  arises, 
whether  such  a  many-sided  and  fundamental 


152  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  vi. 

opposition,  which  never  gets  beyond  a  mere  ought 
and  a  postulated  solution,  can  be  the  genuine  and 
complete  truth,  and,  in  general,  the  supreme 
purpose.  If  the  culture  of  the  world  has  fallen 
into  such  a  contradiction,  it  becomes  the  task  of 
philosophy  to  undo  or  cancel  it,  i.e.,  to  show  that 
neither  the  one  alternative  in  its  abstraction  nor 
the  other  in  similar  one-sidedness  possesses  truth, 
but  that  they  are  essentially  self-dissolving;  that 
truth  only  lies  in  the  conciliation  and  mediation  of 
the  two,  and  that  this  mediation  is  no  mere  postu- 
late, bat  is  in  its  nature  and  in  reality  accomplished, 
and  always  self -accomplishing.  This  intention 
agrees  directly  with  the  natural  faith  and  will, 
which  always  has  present  to  the  mind's  eye  pre- 
cisely this  resolved  antithesis,  and  in  action  makes 
it  its  purpose  and  achieves  it.  All  that  philosophy 
does  is  to  furnish  a  reflective  insight  into  the 
essence  of  the  antithesis  in  so  far  as  it  shows  that 
what  constitutes  truth  is  merely  the  resolution  of 
the  antithesis,  and  that  not  in  the  sense  that  the 
conflict  and  its  aspects  in  any  way  are  not,  but  in 
the  sense  that  they  are,  in  reconciliation." 

Well,  there  you  have  the  substance  and  essence 
of  what  I  have  been  saying  put  in  another  form. 
It  is  a  summing  up  of  the  method  which  thought 
must  resort  to  if  it  is  to  get  rid  of  the  gaps  and  the 
antithesis  which  itself  has  created.  The  nature  of 
thought  and  reality  cannot  be  got  at  psychologically 

*  Hegel,  Introduction  to  Philosophy  of  Fine  Art,  Bosanquet's 
Translation,  p.  101. 


THE  NARROW  VIEW  OF  THOUGHT  153 

by  the  presentationism  which  isolates  thought  from 
feeling  and  gives  it  a  relational  and  what  is  some- 
times called  a  discursive  appearance.  Great 
difficulty  has  been  caused  in  the  understanding  of 
idealism  by  the  notion  that  things  exist,  on  the  one 
hand,  out  there  in  their  hard-and-fastness  in- 
dependently of  the  mind  for  which  they  are  what 
they  are,  and  on  the  other  hand,  that  thought  is 
something  that  we  can  isolate  and  distinguish  from 
the  other  faculties  and  contents  of  the  mind  as  if  it 
had  a  position  by  itself.  In  grammar  we  break  up 
the  language  which  embodies  thought  into  different 
parts,  the  subject,  the  predicate,  and  the  copula,  as 
though  the  copula  were  something  which  had 
existence  apart  from  the  other  two  which  it  unites. 
It  is  grammar  and  the  old  division  of  logic,  based 
upon  a  scheme  which  Aristotle  who  founded  it 
probably  used  for  a  special  purpose  and  not  as  a 
guide  to  what  he  was  teaching  his  pupils  of  the 
nature  of  reality,  that  have  led  to  much  of  the 
difficulty  that  we  often  experience  to-day.  Just  as 
in  psychology  we  fall  into  presentationism — to  use 
Miinsterberg's  phrase  which  I  have  so  often  used 
before  in  these  lectures — the  setting  of  feeling  as 
not,  what  it  is  in  reality,  a  part  of  the  continuous  flow 
of  the  content  of  the  mind,  but  as  something  which 
can  be  isolated  and  treated  as  though  it  had  an  in- 
dependent existence  apart  from  the  other  contents 
of  the  mind,  so  in  ordinary  logic  and  psychology 
we  are  very  apt  to  do  the  same  with  thought. 
We  do  it  for  some  purposes,  and  it  is  right  that 


154  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  vi. 

we  should  do  it  for  some  purposes,  just  as  in  psy- 
chology it  is  necessary  to  resort  to  the  method  of 
presentationism,  but  when  you  come  to  talk  of  the 
nature  of  reality  and  when  you  are  inquiring  into 
the  meaning  of  things  by  the  methods  which  we 

«/ 

are  using  here,  the  conception  of  thought  in  which 
it  is  presented  as  an  element  existing  apart  from 
feeling  is  not  only  a  narrow  one,  but  a  false  and 
extremely  misleading  one. 

Of  course,  thoughts  do  not  make  things.  It  is 
ridiculous  to  suppose  that  thought,  in  that  narrow 
sense,  can  give  you  the  meaning  and  nature  of  reality 
as  consisting  in  what  is  reducible  to  such  thought. 
The  ignoring  of  the  fact  that  thought  has  a  wider 
meaning  in  which  it  embraces  the  entire  activity  of 
the  mind,  has  led  to  a  vast  amount  of  confusion  and 
fallacious  reasoning. 

Yet  it  is  by  asking  what  to  be  means,  and  by 
purifying  our  notion  of  the  work  of  the  mind,  which 
bodies  itself  forth  in  reality,  from  the  abstract 
fashions  of  regarding  it  which  are  useful  for  every- 
day purposes,  that  we  make  progress.  The  plane 
of  our  degree  of  reality  in  the  self-development 
of  absolute  self-comprehension  is  what  we  have  to 
clear  our  minds  about.  Our  self-comprehension,  the 
self-comprehension  of  finite  mind,  is  only  partial, 
just  because  mind  in  that  form  has  imposed  on  itself 
the  categories  of  what  is  partial,  the  conceptions  of 
finitude.  But  we  cannot  entertain  the  notion  that 
such  limitations  are  final  in  the  mind  that  fully  com- 
prehends itself  as  that  within  which  all  reality  falls. 


THE  WIDER  VIEW  OF  THOUGHT   155 

For  the  absolute  mind  and  in  the  absolute  mind  to 
think  must  be  to  create.  It  is  obvious  that  in  saying 
this  I  am  taking  the  word  "  thought "  in  the  wider 
sense.  To  think  is  to  create ;  in  other  words,  for 
this  is  the  other  side  of  that  reflection,  intelligence 
and  will  must  fall  together.  If  we  were  at  the  plane 
of  absolute  self-comprehension,  relieved  from  those 
categories  of  finitude  which  are  always  imposing 
upon  us  the  necessity  of  conceiving  everything  as 
having  reference  to  another  beyond  it,  something 
foreign  to  itself,  we  should  comprehend  the  world 
as  God  comprehends  it. 

Now,  this  idea  of  complete  self- comprehen- 
sion is  no  new  idea.  You  find  it  in  the  poets.  I 
go  for  illustration  to  another  poet,  a  speculative 
poet,  yet  one  who  was  less  speculative  than  Goethe. 
Most  of  you  here  know  Tennyson's  little  poem,  a 
very  short  one,  on  the  flower  in  the  crannied  wall : 

"  Flower  in  the  crannied  wall, 

I  pluck  you  out  of  the  crannies  ; 

Hold  you  here,  root  and  all,  in  my  hand, 
Little  flower — but  if  I  could  understand 
What  you  are,  root  and  all,  and  all  in  all, 
I  should  know  what  God  and  Man  is." 

Well,  God  as  self-consciousness,  the  basis  and 
presupposition  of  even  our  capacity  to  reflect  about 
Him,  must  have  an  object  from  which  He  distin- 
guishes Himself.  I  showed  you  in  a  previous 
lecture  that  even  a  sceptical  question  could  only  be 
raised  upon  the  basis  that  it  was  an  "I"  that  reflects, 
that  to  be  self-conscious  was  the  very  characteristic 


156  ABSOLUTE  MIND  OCT.  VI. 

of  mind,  that  the  very  nature  of  mind  consisted  in 
being  self-conscious.  But  in  self-consciousness 
we  distinguish  the  self  from  something  else.  This  is 
of  the  essence  of  the  conception  of  self,  and  that  char- 
acteristic must  in  some  sort  be  the  characteristic 
of  Absolute  Mind,  as  it  is  of  mind  at  the  plane 
of  finite  comprehension.  If  the  Absolute  Mind 
must  have,  as  is  implied  in  the  fact  of  self -conscious- 
ness, an  object,  it  is  plain  that  that  object  can  only 
be  itself.  For  the  Absolute  Mind  nothing  can  have 
any  meaning,  outside  itself.  Its  object  must  fall 
within  itself,  can  only  be  within  itself.  It  must  find 
the  necessary  distinction  from  itself  in  an  Other  that 
is  just  itself.  The  mind  of  God  must  have  in  its 
Other  itself,  and  must  recognise  in  that  Other  just 
Himself  in  the  form  of  otherness. 

Now  that  is  not  a  modern  conception.  That  is 
a  conception  which  was  embodied  by  Aristotle  in 
his  famous  definition  of  God,  the  infinite  intelli- 
gence, as  the  vorjans  votj<reu>?,  "  the  knowledge  of  itself 
by  knowledge."  Absolute  Mind  can  only  think 
itself,  and  can  only  find  the  necessary  distinction 
from  itself  in  the  Other  which  is  just  itself.  That 
Other  is  for  it,  and  the  only  finitude  that  comes  in 
is  not,  and  cannot  be,  finitude  as  belonging  to  the 
Absolute  Mind  as  such,  but  to  the  Absolute  Mind 
as  Other  to  itself.  It  must  recognise  in  its  object 
itself,  and  itself  as  having  assumed  as  object  the 
form  of  finitude  which  for  the  Absolute  Mind  is  thus 
an  aspect  in  its  own  self-comprehension.  Just 
because  the  other,  the  object  of  which  the  Absolute 


THE  ABSOLUTE  IN  OTHERNESS    157 

Mind  is  conscious,  is  mind  itself,  the  other  must 
appear  as  a  mind  which  knows,  but  knows  having 
assumed  the  form  of  finitude.  The  Absolute  Mind, 
of  course,  does  not  as  such  comprehend  under  the 
form  of  finitude,  but  its  object,  which  is  just  itself 
as  subject  known  as  such  in  knowledge,  appears  as 
mind  which  has  imposed  upon  itself  the  form  of 
dependence  on  another  to  which  it  stands  in  con- 
trast, and  therefore  knows  under  finite  cate- 
gories. 

Now,  if  that  is  so  the  Absolute  Mind  has  before 
it  in  the  mind  which  is  its  object  a  mind  for  which 
nature  and  evil,  which  cannot  be  for  it  directly,  can 
arise  because  of  the  nature  of  finitude,  and  these 
therefore  touch  the  Absolute  Mind  only  indirectly, 
in  an  aspect  only  of  its  self-comprehension.  That  is 
how  the  Absolute  Mind  realises  itself  in  the  process 
into  which  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  go  in  order 
to  the  enrichment  of  its  self-consciousness.  Without 
an  object  there  could  be  no  self-consciousness ;  with- 
out these  distinctions  there  could  be  no  content  for 
the  Absolute  Mind ;  and  yet  in  making  these  dis- 
tinctions it  must  comprehend  them  as  falling  within 
itself,  and  as  created  by  itself. 

That  is  how  God's  nature  is  eternal  activity,  how 
He,  so  to  speak,  goes  out  into  series  and  yet  remains 
as  the  sum  of  the  series — an  eternal  now  which  is 
not  distinguished  from  but  is  the  inclusion  in  itself, 
in  a  superseded  and  transmuted  form,  of  the  moments 
of  past  and  future.  In  an  ordinary  time  series  we  dis- 
tinguish past,  present,  and  future  as  three  moments 


158  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  vt. 

which  are  related  to  one  another,  and  are  not  wholly 
mutually  exclusive  like  parts  in  space,  yet  we  never 
transcend  wholly  the  foreignness  which  time  pre- 
sents, the  externality  to  each  other  of  the  members 
of  its  series  for  thought.  But  in  such  a  series  as  I 
have  been  describing  to  you  the  whole  of  the  series 
is  summed  up  in  an  eternal  now  which  does  not 
make  time  unmeaning,  but  must  transmute  and 
supersede  the  notion  of  the  past  and  the  future  as 
facts  which  limit  or  make  finite  the  now,  the  eternal 
now  of  perfect  comprehension. 

Well,  the  purpose  of  the  Absolute  Mind,  the 
end  which  it  seeks  to  realise,  must  be  self-compre- 
hension in  its  utmost  fulness.  Self-consciousness 
must  go  into  otherness  in  order  to  enrich  itself,  and 
it  must  return  into  itself,  so  to  speak,  in  order  to 
be  the  self-consciousness  of  the  Absolute  Mind. 
That  is  to  say,  just  as  we  found  that  the  nature  of 
thought  was  a  triple  movement,  that  mind  posited 
itself  in  difference  and  then  comprehended  its  unity 
with  that  difference  in  that  the  difference  turned 
out  to  fall  within  itself  and  to  form  one  whole  with 
itself,  so  we  have  the  same  movement  of  thought, 
the  same  dialectic  of  the  notion,  when  we  come  to 
the  characteristic  of  Absolute  Mind.  Just  because 
we  are  dealing  with  mind  of  which  the  nature  is  to 
be  activity  and  dialectical  activity,  you  must  have 
these  three  moments  in  the  Absolute  Mind :  the 
first,  the  aspect  from  which  you  proceed,  that  of 
mind  which  we  may  speak  of  as  mind  in  itself  in  so 
far  as  we  abstract  in  reflection  from  the  movement ; 


DOCTRINE  OF  THE  TRINITY        159 

then  the  mind  setting  itself  in  antithesis  to  itself  as 
the  condition  of  self-consciousness ;  and  then  the 
self-consciousness,  the  complete  self-comprehension, 
as  the  totality  which  embraces  the  two.  And  it  is 
obvious  that  we  are  not  here  describing  a  process 
in  time ;  we  are  describing  a  whole  in  which  the 
first  two  appear  only  as  aspects,  and  in  which  the 
richest  conception  is  the  conception  of  the  totality 
of  the  other  two  moments. 

You  get  in  this  way  three  phases :  Absolute 
Mind  in  itself;  Absolute  Mind  in  its  hetereity  or 
otherness,  under  the  distinction  which  it  has  set  up 
of  itself  from  itself;  and  Absolute  Mind  in  syn- 
thesis, a  synthesis  which  is  the  real  prius  of  the  other 
two.  If  this  is  the  true  nature  of  mind,  its  dialectical 
character  must  show  itself  not  merely  in  the  abstract 
language  in  which  metaphysics  describes  it,  the 
difficult  language  which  I  have  been  using,  but 
also  in  much  more  concrete  forms.  You  have  it  in 
art.  You  have  it  in  such  poems  of  Goethe  and 
Wordsworth  as  I  quoted  to  you,  where  you  witness 
recognition  of  dialectic  as  the  real  characteristic 
of  the  world  when  that  world  is  closely  enough 
scrutinised.  And  you  have  it  also  in  religion. 
Now,  religion  is  the  side  of  things  in  which  the 
relation  of  man  to  God  is  realised,  not  in  abstract 
terms,  but  in  feeling  and  in  acts  of  will.  The  nature 
of  God,  the  nature  of  Absolute  Mind,  is  to  exhibit 
the  triple  movement  of  dialectic,  and  so  the  nature 
of  God,  as  conceived  and  presented  in  religion,  must 
be  a  triplicity,  a  Trinity.  The  doctrine  of  the 


160  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  vi. 

Trinity  is  by  no  means  a  specially  Christian  doctrine. 
You  find  it  in  other  religions.  You  find  it  in  Greek 
thought ;  you  find  the  traces  of  its  foundation  in 
the  Dialogues  of  Plato.  It  penetrated  deeply  into 
the  way  of  looking  at  things  of  the  Neoplatonic 
School  of  Alexandria,  and  through  the  Neopla- 
tonists  it  came  to  influence  the  early  theologians  in 
a  very  marked  fashion.  It  is  not  merely  in  phi- 
losophers like  Philo  and  Plotinus  that  you  find  the 
beginnings  of  this  doctrine.  You  find  just  as 
definitely  the  same  sort  of  doctrine  appearing  in 
teachers  like  Justin  Martyr  and  Athanasius,  who 
were  much  under  the  influence  of  Plato  and  at  the 
same  time  prominent  Christians. 

The  creeds  have  always  spoken  in  pictorial 
language.  That  is  essential,  because  religion  is 
something  which  deals  not  with  abstractions,  with 
what  is  mediated  by  thought,  but  with  the  immediate, 
with  feeling,  with  direct  consciousness.  The  creeds 
speak  in  pictorial  language,  and  because  truths 
which  can  be  represented  only  in  metaphysical 
language  and  abstractly  are  thus  put  into  pictorial 
conceptions,  there  is  constantly  strife  arising 
over  the  pictures  which  the  mind  frames  of 
the  ultimate  aspects  of  reality.  As  it  is  stated 
in  the  creeds  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is 
essentially  a  doctrine  which  can  be  adequately 
expressed  only  in  metaphysical  language.  It 
belongs  to  reason  as  distinguished  from  under- 
standing. I  mean,  of  course,  by  reason  the  atti- 
tude of  mind  which  comprehends,  as  distinguished 


UNNECESSARY  DIFFICULTIES      161 

from  the  mental  attitude  which  merely  apprehends. 
And  just  because  a  doctrine  which  belongs  to 
reason  has  been  seized  on  by  understanding,  much 
strife  and  much  obscurity  has  arisen. 

Hegel  makes  the  observation  that  "  those  who 
oppose  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  are  men  who  are 
guided  merely  by  their  senses  and  understanding." 
But  he  goes  on  to  point  out  that  the  advocates  of 
the  doctrine  have  used  images  and  metaphors  which 
are  responsible  for  the  confusion.  The  apparent 
incomprehensibility  arises  simply  from  this,  that 
people  will  try  to  express  in  images  which  belong 
to  the  region  of  space  and  time  what  belongs  to  a 
higher  level  than  that  of  mere  space  and  time  rela- 
tions. There  can  be  no  incomprehensibility  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  if  our  view  of  the  nature 
of  thought  be  true,  the  view,  namely,  that  the 
difficulties  with  which  thought  has  to  cope  are 
difficulties  of  its  own  creation,  which  it  must  there- 
fore be  adequate  to  deal  with. 

Well,  let  us  see  whether  we  can  compare  our 
metaphysical  result,  the  result  which  we  have 
reached  in  these  lectures,  as  to  the  nature  of  mind, 
with  the  theological  expression  of  the  doctrine  to 
which  I  have  just  made  reference. 

The  Gospel  of  John  begins  with  this  sentence : — 
"  In  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and  the  Word 
was  with  God,  and  the  Word  was  God."  Now, 
the  Greek  which  is  translated  "  word  "  is  "  Logos," 
and  it  is  evident  that  the  expression  "  word  "  is  a 
very  imperfect  translation  of  what  is  conveyed  by 


162  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [L*CT.  vi. 

"  Logos."  Logos  is  an  expression  which  you  find 
early  in  Greek  philosophy,  and  it  was  a  familiar 
expression  in  the  School  of  Alexandria.  It  may 
well  be  that  this  sentence  is  an  interpretive  sentence 
which  was  inserted  into  the  Gospel  of  John  by 
somebody  of  a  more  metaphysical  mind  than  its 
original  writer.  One  might  possibly  paraphrase  the 
first  verse  of  John's  Gospel,  rendering  it  in  meta- 
physical language,  thus  :  "  In  the  beginning  was 
the  concrete  actuality  of  Spirit,  and  this  concrete 
actuality  of  Spirit  stood  in  relation  to  God,  and 
one  aspect  of  God  was  the  Spirit  which  was  so 
related."  That,  of  course,  is  a  paraphrase,  but  it  is 
a  paraphrase  which  comes  very  near  to  what  seems 
to  be  the  metaphysical  meaning. 

You  have  in  the  New  Testament  the  recognition 
of  the  three  moments  on  which  metaphysics  lays 
such  stress.  You  have,  first  of  all,  that  which  in 
philosophy  would  be  the  aspect  which  belongs  to 
what  Hegel  calls  "Logic" — I  mean  the  aspect 
which  represents  Mind  taken  in  itself  and  apart 
from  its  consciousness  of  itself  in  another.  Mind 
in  itself  may  be  said  to  represent  what  in 
theological  language  is  described  as  the  Father. 
In  the  element  of  the  Son  you  have  mind  gone 
into  otherness,  hetereity,  finite  mind,  the  nature 
of  which  is  conditioned  by  the  externality  which, 
as  we  saw,  is  only  for  and  through  the  finite  mind 
— God,  in  other  words,  imposing  on  Himself  the 
limits  of  man's  finitude,  and  so  only,  in  this 
fashion  alone,  coming  into  direct  relation  with 


THE  THREE  ASPECTS  163 

nature,  with  evil,  and  with  death.  Then  there  is 
the  third  moment  in  the  movement,  the  return  of 
the  Absolute  Mind  into  itself  in  the  fulness  of  its 
self-consciousness,  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  aspect  in 
the  Trinity  which  is  in  reality  the  logical  prius  of 
the  two  other  aspects,  aspects  which  are  separable 
only  in  abstraction. 

Now,  if  you  take  into  account  that  these  three 
aspects  of  one  reality,  although  they  are  three,  are 
yet  one,  and,  although  they  are  one,  are  yet  so  in 
the  unity  of  an  Absolute  Mind  which  distinguishes 
itself  and  expresses  itself  under  these  three  aspects, 
the  difficulty  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  turns 
out,  as  Hegel  has  said,  to  be  due  to  the  tendency 
of  man  to  look  at  things  always  in  the  light  of  his 
abstractions  of  the  understanding,  instead  of  from 
the  standpoint  of  reason  which  comprehends  and 
so  transcends  its  own  distinctions. 

Turning  back  to  John's  Gospel  I  may  observe 
in  passing  that  the  view  of  the  nature  of  Ultimate 
Reality  which  I  have  been  suggesting,  throws  light 
on  a  point  on  which  there  was  a  great  controversy 
in  the  early  Church.  If  it  be  the  case  that  the 
true  conception  of  the  nature  of  absolute  mind  is 
that  it  implies  the  contemplation  of  itself  as  in  other- 
ness, as  having  taken  upon  itself  the  guise  of  finite- 
ness,  and  as  at  the  same  time  being  reunited  with 
itself  in  the  completeness  of  self-conscious  spirit, — 
then  the  third,  the  complete  actuality  in  which  the 
others  are  separable  only  by  abstraction,  is  a 
third  which  implies  the  union  of  the  other  two. 


164  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  vr. 

The  actuality  of  self-conscious  mind  has,  as  its 
moments,  not  merely  the  first  aspect  in  the  anti- 
thesis, absolute  mind,  taken  by  itself,  nor  the  second 
taken  by  itself,  but  the  two  in  combination.  Now 
what  was  in  the  thoughts  of  the  early  theologians 
of  the  School  of  Alexandria  is  not  easy  to  de- 
termine. But  they  had  inherited  the  Platonic 
view  of  the  dialectical  nature  of  reason,  and  it  is 
evident  that  they  ascribe  such  a  nature  to  God  as 
they  conceived  Him.  It  seems,  therefore,  that  those 
who  succeeded  them  were  right  in  invoking  their 
authority  in  support  of  the  doctrine  that  the 
Holy  Spirit  must  be  taken  as  proceeding  from 
the  Son  as  well  as  from  the  Father.  If  so,  the 
weight  of  authority  in  a  great  controversy  of  the 
Christian  Church  is  with  those  who  argued  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  Western  Church  ultimately  re- 
solved it. 

The  Logos,  as  I  have  said,  was  a  familiar  word 
to  students  of  Greek  philosophy.  The  Platonic 
doctrine  of  the  dialectical  relation  of  the  one  and 
the  many  had  profoundly  influenced  the  School  of 
Alexandria.  Now,  the  translation  of  this  first 
sentence  in  John's  Gospel  is  very  difficult.  It  is 
discussed  in  a  very  learned  and  scholarly  work 
which  I  regret  to  think  is  out  of  print,  but  which  I 
have  had  the  advantage  of  consulting  in  the  pre- 
paration of  these  lectures.  I  refer  to  Principal 
Donaldson's  Critical  History  of  Christian  Literature 
and  Doctrine  from  the  Death  of  the  Apostles  to  the 
Nicene  Council.  Principal  Donaldson  points  out 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  ALEXANDRIA     165 

that  the  words  in  the  verse  in  John  are  not  just 
what  some  of  the  interpreters  have  taken  them  to 
be.  The  words  are  in  Greek,  KOI  Oeoo-  tjv  6  Xoyo?,  not 
KOI  6  Oeoo-  f\v  6  XoyoV  To  translate  Oeoa-  as  "  God  " 
seems  therefore  to  go  too  far ;  to  render  it  as 
"  divine  "  seems  too  little.  That  is  why  I  have  sug- 
gested the  true  translation  as  being  that  the  Logos 
was  an  aspect  of  the  divine,  a  rendering  which 
would  accord  with  the  current  tradition  of  the 
Alexandrian  School.  It  seems  as  though  what 
was  meant  was  to  indicate,  not  numerical  identity, 
but  a  different  aspect  of  one  reality.  Especially 
suggestive,  as  showing  the  frame  of  mind  from 
which  that  expression  may  have  originated,  is 
Principal  Donaldson's  account  of  the  teaching  of 
Justin  .Martyr,  who  lived  in  the  second  century. 
Justin  Martyr  was  a  close  student  of  Plato.  He 
explains  that  he  wishes  to  call  himself  a  Christian 
"  not  because  the  teachings  of  Plato  are  different 
from  those  of  Christ,  but  because  they  are  not  in 
all  points  like."  He  believed  that  his  teacher, 
Plato,  had  learned  much  from  Moses,  and  that  in 
Plato  there  were  even  anticipations  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  Cross.  Now,  the  influence  of  the  Platonic 
doctrine  of  the  one  and  the  many,  which  was  very 
prominent  in  men  like  Justin  Martyr,  certainly  did 
not  diminish  as  the  Church  grew.  Athanasius  was 
Bishop  of  Alexandria,  and  his  name  is  associated 
with  a  great  creed.  Two  things  are  certain,  the 
one  that  Athanasius  had  been  brought  largely  in 
contact  with  Neoplatonism ;  the  other,  that  Athan- 


166  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LKT.  vi. 

asius  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  Athan- 
asian  Creed.  That  document  was  composed  very 
much  later.  It  probably  did  not  emerge  in  its 
completeness  until  the  seventh  century,  and  Athan- 
asius,  who  lived  in  the  fourth  century,  obviously 
could  have  had  no  direct  connection  with  it.  But 
the  name  of  Athanasius  was  a  name  of  great 
renown,  and  it  may  well  be  that  those  who  con- 
structed the  Athanasian  Creed  thought  that  his 
was  a  suitable  name,  having  regard  to  the  nature 
of  his  teaching,  to  give  authority  to  a  doctrine 
which  seemed  to  accord  with  what  tradition  associ- 
ated with  him. 

On  the  question  of  the  nature  of  the  Athanasian 
Creed  and  its  position  in  Church  history,  I  do  not, 
of  course,  feel  competent  to  speak,  but  Harnack, 
whose  History  of  Dogma  is  the  source  of  most  of 
such  information  as  I  have  upon  the  subject,  in  the 
fourth  volume  of  the  English  translation  discusses 
the  origin  of  this  Creed,  and  defines  it  as  "the 
transformation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  an 
article  of  Faith  to  be  inwardly  appropriated,  into 
an  ecclesiastical  legal  statute  on  the  observance  of 
which  salvation  depends."  He  states  that  the 
Athanasian  Creed  was  apparently  a  Gallican  Rule  of 
Faith  explanatory  of  the  Creed  of  Nicsea,  and  that, 
probably  as  early  as  the  fifth  century,  it  began  with 
the  famous  phrase  "Quicunque  vult  salvus  esse." 
By  degrees  it  grew  into  its  position  as  a  Confession 
in  the  eighth  or  ninth  century.  Now  the  Athanasian 
Creed  is  the  Creed  which  settled  once  and  for  all 


THE  ATHANASIAK  CKEEt)         167 

the  controversy  over  the  "  filioque  "  clause.  Those 
of  you  who  have  read  Church  history  know  that 
the  "  filioque  "  clause  was  the  clause  which  affirmed 
that  the  Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost  was  from 
the  Son  as  well  as  from  the  Father,  and  that  over 
this  question  the  Western  Church  and  the  Eastern 
Church  were  divided.  The  Athanasian  Creed, 
which  declares  that  "The  Holy  Ghost  is  of  the 
Father  and  of  the  Son ;  neither  made,  nor  created, 
nor  begotton,  but  proceeding,"  pronounced  for  the 
Western  view,  and  of  course  became  the  Creed  of 
the  Western  Church.  It  asserts  that  "  Unity  in 
Trinity  and  Trinity  in  Unity"  is  what  is  to  be 
worshipped,  and  it  thus  lays  down  a  doctrine, 
obviously  of  Platonic  origin  so  far  as  its  language 
goes,  which  accords  with  the  metaphysical  view 
which  I  have  been  setting  before  you.  The  Athan- 
asian Creed  has  been  much  abused,  but  at  least  it 
has  the  merit  of  showing  a  speculative  insight  much 
more  profound  than  that  of  the  other  creeds.  The 
history  of  the  "  filioque  "  clause  controversy  illus- 
trates how  much  more  of  resemblance  than  of 
difference  we  find  between  old  thoughts  and  new, 
when  we  take  the  trouble  to  try  to  understand  the 
context  and  the  circumstances  in  which  the  old 
thoughts  were  expressed.  As  Hegel,  in  his  Proofs 
of  the  Existence  of  God,  says:  "The  consideration" 
(of  the  relation  of  the  mind  of  man  to  Absolute 
Mind),  "is  a  matter  at  once  of  the  deepest  and 
most  elevated  kind,  and  just  because  of  this  it  is 
the  most  difficult  of  tasks.  You  cannot  carry  it  on 


168  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  vi. 

by  means  of  finite  categories ;  that  is,  the  modes  of 
thought  which  we  employ  in  ordinary  life  and  in 
dealing  with  contingent  things,  as  well  as  those 
we  are  accustomed  to  in  the  sciences,  don't  suffice 
for  it.  The  latter  have  their  foundation,  their  logic, 
in  connections  which  belong  to  what  is  finite ;  such 
as  cause  and  effect;  their  laws,  their  descriptive 
terms,  their  modes  of  arguing,  are  purely  relations 
belonging  to  what  is  conditioned,  and  which  lose 
their  significance  at  the  heights  where  the  Infinite 
is.  They  must  indeed  be  employed,  but  at  the 
same  time  they  have  always  to  be  referred  back 
to  their  proper  sphere  and  have  their  meaning 
rectified."  * 

"  The  fact,"  he  goes  on,  "  of  the  fellowship  of 
God  and  Man  with  each  other  involves  a  fellowship 
of  Spirit  with  Spirit.  It  involves  the  most  im- 
portant questions.  It  is  a  fellowship,  and  this  very 
circumstance  involves  the  difficulty  of  at  once 
maintaining  the  fact  of  difference,  and  of  defining 
it  in  such  a  way  as  to  preserve  the  fact  of  fellow- 
ship. That  Man  knows  God  implies,  in  accordance 
with  the  essential  idea  of  communion  or  fellowship, 
that  there  is  a  community  of  knowledge ;  that  is  to 
say,  Man  knows  God  only  in  so  far  as  God  Himself 
knows  Himself  in  Man.  This  knowledge  is  God's 
self-consciousness,  but  it  is  at  the  same  time  a 
knowledge  of  God  on  the  part  of  Man,  and  the 
knowledge  of  God  by  Man  is  a  knowledge  of  Man 

*  Hegel,  Proofs  of  the  Existence  of  God,  English  Translation, 
p.  303. 


HEGEL  160 

by  God.  The  Spirit  of  Man,  whereby  he  knows 
God,  is  simply  the  Spirit  of  God  Himself." 

Hegel's  Philosophy  of  Religion,  from  the  last  part 
of  which  I  have  quoted  these  words — for  the  Proofs 
of  the  Existence  of  God  are  an  Appendix  to  his 
Philosophy  of  Religion — is  one  of  the  most  important 
parts  of  his  system.  It  fills  up  several  gaps  in  his 
teaching.  And  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion  you 
have,  in  addition,  the  exhibition  of  a  rich  and 
reverent  mind  letting  itself  go  freely  into  the  task 
of  trying  to  bring  order  and  clearness  into  the 
comprehension  of  the  most  difficult  of  all  problems. 

Well,  religion  is  related  to  philosophy,  to 
abstract  knowledge,  in  a  way  which  marks  it  out 
as,  on  the  one  hand,  necessitating  that  abstract 
knowledge  for  orderliness  in  its  own  doctrines,  and, 
upon  the  other  hand,  as  containing  in  itself  some- 
thing which  no  abstract  doctrine  can  supply.  The 
forms  of  religion  vary.  Their  expressions  of  the 
truth  differ  in  different  ages  and  with  different 
minds.  But  in  the  highest  forms  of  religion  there 
is  a  common  content  or  substance.  Faith  always 
means  the  sense  that  the  true  reality  of  the  world 
lies  in  the  unseen ;  not  in  that  which  is  merely 
hidden  from  sight,  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  in 
aspects  which  require  the  use  of  higher  categories 
than  those  of  everyday  social  life  for  their  grasp. 

The  central  doctrine  of  the  Atonement  illus- 
trates this,  for  it  implies  the  potential  identity  of 
man  and  God  in  a  single  subject  of  knowledge. 

*  Hegel,  Ibid. 


170  ABSOLUTE  MIND  [LECT.  vt. 

Excepting  on  this  footing,  it  is  hardly  intelligible. 
What  it  signifies  is  the  return  into  identity  from 
difference,  the  conception  which,  throughout  the 
history  of  thought,  has  underlain  the  profoundest 
forms  of  speculation.  In  the  religious  conscious- 
ness this  return  appears  as  an  exercise  of  the  will — 
as  a  dying  to  live  and  that  others  may  live.  Thus 
the  deliverances  of  the  religious  consciousness,  in 
its  broad  interpretation,  converge,  as  do  those  of 
the  aesthetic  consciousness,  towards  the  same  result 
as  the  teaching  of  philosophy  gives. 

I  have  completed  with  that  observation  the  first 
six  lectures  of  this  course.  What  I  have  done  in 
them  is  to  try  to  build  up  an  affirmative  conception 
of  what  philosophy  means  by  the  expression 
"God."  The  result  of  my  attempt  has  been  to 
define  God  as  mind  that  comprehends  itself  com- 
pletely. Within  such  mind  all  reality — of  whatever 
character  or  degree — must  fall.  It  is  a  deduction 
from  the  definition  that  mind  as  it  is  in  Man  is  this 
same  self-comprehension,  but  at  a  plane  or  stage 
which  is  imperfect.  I  have  shown  you,  further, 
that  it  is  the  nature  and  level  of  the  purpose  to  be 
realised  that  determines  the  nature  and  level  of  the 
comprehension,  and  that  thus  it  is  in  ends  and  not 
in  causes  that  the  explanation  of  the  Universe  is  to 
be  sought. 

In  this  set  of  six  lectures  I  have  thus  endeavoured 
to  deal  with  the  nature  of  what  is  Divine.  My 
remaining  four  lectures  will  be  directed  to  the 
nature  of  what  is  Human. 


BOOK    IV 
FINITE   MIND 


LECTURE  I 

THE  discussion  of  the  nature  of  mind  which 
occupied  the  last  six  lectures  brought  us  to  the 
conclusion  that  complete  self-comprehension  is  the 
characteristic  of  mind,  in  the  sense  in  which  it  is 
the  equivalent  of  final  and  ultimate  Reality.  Such 
complete  self-comprehension  is,  as  I  showed  you, 
only  possible  in  a  consciousness  where  the  cate- 
gories, which  are  the  forms  of  what,  for  want  of 
a  better  expression,  I  will  call  its  life  and  movement, 
are  present  in  the  entirety  of  their  system  and  full 
relationship  to  each  other.  If  mind  concentrates 
under  certain  of  these  categories  to  the  exclusion 
of  others,  and  of  their  real  relationship  to  these 
others  and  to  the  whole,  imperfect  self-comprehen 
sion  is  the  characteristic  of  consciousness.  Yet 
the  very  nature  of  reflection  is  to  concentrate,  in 
this  partial  and  abstract  fashion,  as  the  logical  pre- 
liminary to  more  complete  self-realisation.  Thus 
the  finite  is  a  necessary  moment  in  the  true  infinite, 
but  a  moment  only.  So  it  is  that  mind  as  it  is  in 
man  is  mind  that  knows  itself  as  known,  and  as 
known  yet  knows,  a  form  into  which  Absolute 
Mind  throws  itself,  in  the  attainment  of  the  full 

173 


174  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  r. 

fruition  of  the  riches  of  its  self-comprehension. 
Such  is  the  necessary  outcome  of  the  dialectical 
nature  of  thought.  Like  the  men  of  science,  whose 
procedure  we  discussed  in  Book  II.  of  the  first 
series  of  these  lectures,  we  men  and  women  have 
to  limit  ourselves  that  we  may  fulfil  the  ends  for 
which  we  exist,  and  these  ends  themselves  exist 
because  they  form  part  of  the  scheme  of  the  Divine 
Mind. 

Thus  the  self-comprehension  of  the  human 
mind  has  the  defect  of  its  quality.  Only  in  so  far 
as  its  quality  is  what  it  is  can  that  mind  be  human. 
In  so  far  as  it  is  human  it  is  defective,  and  must 
remain  so,  in  self-comprehension.  That  self-com- 
prehension has  to  take  place  under  time  distinctions, 
in  a  process  which  is  unending,  because  its  essence 
is  to  recognise  what  is  as  qualified  by  what  is 
not,  inasmuch  as,  being  not  yet  presented,  the  latter 
lies  beyond.  There  is  for  us  nowhere  an  aspect  of 
reality  which  is  not  in  contrast  with  another  aspect, 
actual  or  possible.  Did  we  not  conceive  our  lives 
under  such  distinctions  we  should  be  untrue  to  the 
very  basis  of  our  existence,  such  as  it  is. 

Even  thought,  which  we  are  always  seeking  to 
abstract  and  present  as  other  than  its  object,  and 
to  contrast  with  feeling,  is  thus  characterised  for 
us  by  finitude.  It  is  natural  that  we  should  apply 
to  it  a  method  of  investigation  which  gives  us, 
indeed,  clear  knowledge  of  a  kind,  but  clear 
knowledge  purchased  at  the  cost  of  our  being 
obliged  to  treat  thought  abstractly,  as  if  relational 


NATURE  OF  THOUGHT  175 

and  discursive.  But  the  relational  and  discursive 
aspect  turns  out  quickly  to  be  but  an  aspect  in 
which  thought  can  present  itself  to  itself.  The 
fashion  of  such  presentation  implies  a  violent 
abstraction.  That  thought  can  itself  correct  this 
abstraction  is  apparent  from  the  very  fact  that  it  is 
aware  of  the  shortcoming  and  does  correct  it. 
The  more  closely  self-consciousness  is  investigated, 
the  more  apparent  it  is  that  the  distinction  between 
subject  and  object  is  made  by  and  falls  within  it. 

Now  you  and  I  may  expect,  as  we  proceed  to 
look  in  the  next  four  lectures  into  the  nature  of 
finite  mind,  that  we  shall  find  this  tendency  to  self- 
correction  on  the  part  of  reflection  everywhere 
apparent.  Complete  comprehension  of  self  in  its 
object  there  can  never  be,  for  the  reason  that  1  have 
so  much  dwelt  on.  But  there  can  hardly  be  a  limit 
assigned  to  the  progress  towards  it.  We  shall 
expect,  if  we  scan  closely  enough,  to  see  in  an 
ordinary  view  of  the  world  about  us  lower  aspects 
being  displaced  by  higher  ones,  in  a  process  that 
is  unending  in  the  sense  that  no  limit  can  be 
assigned  to  it.  We  may  not  be  able  to  sum  up  the 
series,  but  our  study  of  the  nature  of  consciousness 
may  assure  us  that  it  can  be,  and  is,  summed  up  for 
a  mind  that  is  at  a  higher  plane  than  ours.  Just 
as  the  aspect  of  life  was  found  by  us  to  be  freer 
from  the  abstractions  of  finitude  than  that  of 
mechanism,  just  as  consciousness  in  like  manner 
proved  to  be,  even  for  presentationism,  an  aspect 
of  reality  fuller  and  truer  than  that  of  life,  so  we 


176  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

should  expect  to  find  aspects  of  the  world  as  it 
seems  in  which  that  world  expresses  a  nature  that 
is  greater  than  the  nature  of  finite  self-hood,  with 
the  distinctness  in  which  it  crystallises  what  appears 
in  it.  Now  such  aspects  we  seem  to  discover  lying 
ready  to  hand  in  what  is  characterised  by  beauty, 
and  indeed  in  the  entire  world  as  it  is  for  the  artist, 
and  especially  in  the  forms  in  which  he  recreates 
it.  Let  us  try  to  find  out  what  these  aspects  mean 
for  him. 

The  most  obvious  characteristic  of  external 
nature  is  the  mutual  exclusiveness  of  its  appear- 
ances, and  the  stubbornness  with  which  they  resist 
the  attempt  of  reflection  to  attribute  to  them  a  per- 
vading rational  significance.  But  in  the  recognition 
of  beauty  in  nature  we  have  before  us  a  relationship 
which  transcends  this  hard-and-fastness  of  exter- 
nality, and,  which  is  there,  not  for  the  pig  or  the 
sheep,  but  only  for  the  being  that  reflects.  Yet  as 
reflection  does  not  make  things,  and  as,  on  the  other 
hand,  things  have  no  meaning  or  existence  except 
in  reflection,  beauty  must  belong  to  those  forms  of 
reality  which  fall  within  the  individuality  which  the 
universal  and  particular  combine  to  form.  It  must 
be  an  aspect  within  the  individual  as  object,  as  real 
as  any  other  aspect  of  the  world  as  it  seems.  If  so, 
its  character  must  be  that  of  the  individual — in  other 
words,  neither  that  of  a  universal  of  reflection,  nor 
that  of  a  mere  fleeting  particular  of  feeling.  It  must 
be  complete  in  itself,  and  an  end  in  itself. 

Let  us  try  to  find  out  what  are  the  character- 


THE  BEAUTIFUL  177 

istics  of  the  beautiful.  In  the  first  place,  the  senses 
through  which  we  perceive  beauty  are  the  senses 
which  are  in  the  highest  degree  the  handmaids  of 
intelligence.  We  do  not  get  any  definite  idea  of 
beauty  through  the  senses  of  taste  or  smell  or  touch 
taken  by  themselves.  It  is  through  sight  and  hear- 
ing that  we  perceive  beautiful  objects,  and  through 
these  senses  almost  exclusively.  This  fact  seems 
to  indicate  that  it  is  only  for  a  reflecting  mind  that 
what  is  beautiful  exists.  For  a  dog  or  a  horse  it  is 
there,  at  the  most,  only  in  a  very  slight  degree.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  clear  that  beauty  is  no  abstrac- 
tion, and  cannot  be  resolved  into  concepts,  however 
much  its  perception  may  vary  with  the  capacity  to 
form  concepts.  An  object  that  is  beautiful,  whether 
for  sight  or  for  sound,  is  beautiful  in  so  far  as  it  is 
expressive.  It  must  embody  much  more  than  a 
mere  mechanical  relationship,  however  perfect, 
much  more  than  mere  attainment  even  of  a  pur- 
pose. What  then  is  it  that  such  an  object  must 
express  ?  If  we  go  beyond  the  mere  beauty  of 
Nature,  and  turn  to  Art,  we  seem  to  get  the  answer 
to  this  question.  The  mind  of  the  artist  has  the 
characteristic  quality  of  mind  :  it  is  essentially  free. 
It  can  mould  and  sever  or  combine  its  materials  as 
it  pleases.  It  can,  therefore,  in  its  various  forms  of 
activity,  construct  sensuous  images  which  are  in  the 
highest  degree  expressive,  expressive  of  the  highest 
meaning  which  the  mind  is  capable  of  grasping. 

"  The  beauty  of  Art  is  the  beauty  that  is  born 
— born  again,  that  is — of  the  mind,  and  by  as  much 

M 


178  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

as  the  mind  and  its  products  are  higher  than  Nature 
and  its  appearances,  by  so  much  the  beauty  of  Art 
is  higher  than  the  beauty  of  Nature."  * 

A  sunset  in  Nature  is  infinitely  richer  in  material 
and  in  brilliancy  than  a  sunset  painted  by  Turner. 
But  the  reason  why  a  picture  by  Turner  is  in  an 
extraordinary  degree  valuable  is  twofold.  In  the 
first  place,  in  the  picture  we  see  nature  as  Turner 
saw  it — in  other  words,  we  get  an  expression  and 
a  quality  of  expression  which  we  cannot  get  other- 
wise. In  the  second  place,  although  the  expression 
is  embodied  in  only  a  few  poor  patches  of  paint  on 
a  canvas,  it  is  embodied  in  permanence,  and  not  in 
the  fleeting  fashion  in  which  nature  generally 
embodies  an  expression.  The  true  artist  is  there- 
fore no  copyist.  His  material,  that  which  his 
technical  skill  enables  him  to  mould,  is,  nothing 
abstract,  but  the  individual  in  sensuous  form.  Yet 
in  the  sensuous  material  which  he  so  moulds,  mind 
is  apparent.  He  is  "  nearer  to  mind  and  its 
thinking  activity  than  is  mere  external  unintelligent 
nature ;  in  works  of  art  mind  has  to  do  but  with 
its  own."  f  The  immediacy  of  nature  is  in  its 
character  boundlessly  contingent  and  transitory, 
and  the  tendency  of  reflection  is  to  erect  over 
against  it  an  abstract  realm  of  universals  which, 
rational  and  permanent  as  is  their  nature,  are  yet 
inadequate  to  the  concrete  riches  of  this  chaotic 

*  Hegel,  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  of  Fine  Art,  Bosanquet's 
Translation,  p.  3. 

t  Hegel,  Ibid.,  p.  22. 


ART  179 

and  fleeting  spectacle.  "  But  the  mind  is  able  to 
heal  this  schism  which  its  advance  creates,  it 
generates  out  of  itself  the  works  of  fine  art  as  the 
first  middle  term  of  reconciliation  between  pure 
thought  and  what  is  external,  sensuous,  and  transi- 
tory ;  between  nature  with  its  finite  actuality,  and 
the  infinite  freedom  of  the  reason  that  compre- 
hends."* .  .  .  "Art  liberates  the  real  import  of 
appearances  from  the  semblance  and  deception  of 
this  bad  and  fleeting  world,  and  imparts  to 
phenomenal  semblances  a  higher  reality  born  of 
mind."  f  The  work  of  art  is  what  it  is  for  sensuous 
apprehension.  But  it  is  no  mere  sensuous  object. 
It  addresses  itself  to  the  mind  which  is  meant  to 
be  affected  by  it,  and  to  find  satisfaction  in  it.  It 
is  not  for  its  use  but  for  its  truth  that  we  turn  to  an 
object  of  art.  But  the  truth  to  which  we  turn  is 
not  truth  in  a  scientific  or  abstract  form,  but  the 
truth  which  consists  in  the  recognition  of  expres- 
sion in  an  individual  and  sensuous  form. 

Many  passages  might  be  quoted  from  great  art 
critics  which  bring  out  the  point  that  I  have  been 
so  constantly  trying  to  insist  on,  the  point  that  the 
individual  is  no  mere  symbol  of  abstract  knowledge, 
no  mere  means  to  an  end,  but  an  end  in  itself,  a 
true  individual  in  which  the  mind  rests  satisfied  as 
with  something  complete,  self-sustaining  and  unique, 
something  which  leaves  no  sense  of  purpose  unsatis- 

*  Hegel,  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy  oj  Fine  Art,  Bosanquet's 
Translation,  p.  13. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  15. 


180  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

fied.  In  our  appreciation  of  his  work  the  artist 
raises  us  to  his  own  plane  of  comprehension.  This 
is  most  plainly  so  in  music,  and  the  reason  is  easy 
to  find.  In  music  we  are  in  feeling  lifted  away 
from  the  hard  externality  of  nature  which  confronts 
us  in  even  the  most  perfect  definition  of  external 
form  which  painting  or  sculpture  can  give  us.  The 
centre  of  reality  is  no  longer  the  not-self  with  which 
the  self  is  confronted  as  with  something  foreign  in 
which  it  has  to  seek  a  meaning,  but  feeling  which 
belongs  essentially  to  the  region  of  the  self.  The 
externality  of  time  and  space  is,  as  it  were, 
abolished  while  we  listen  and  realise  ourselves 
anew  in  the  sound  that  has  transformed  our  world. 
Schopenhauer  states  this  in  another  way  when  he 
points  out  that  in  music,  as  in  all  art,  we  are  carried 
away  from  the  desire  to  assert  our  individuality  in 
the  world  of  time  and  space,  away  from  the  plane 
at  which  we  will,  and  at  which  we  suffer  pain 
because  we  suffer  hindrance  from  the  Other  which 
confronts  us.  He  speaks  of  the  sense  of  unutter- 
able depth  in  music  "  by  virtue  of  which  it  floats 
through  our  consciousness  as  the  vision  of  a  paradise 
firmly  believed  in,  yet  ever  distant  from  us,  and  by 
which  it  is  so  fully  understood  and  yet  so  in- 
explicable." "  This,"  he  says,  "  rests  on  the  fact  that 
it  restores  to  us  all  the  emotions  of  our  inmost 
nature,  but  entirely  without  reality,  and  removed 
from  their  pain."  *  In  music  we  may  say  that  we 

*    World  as   Will  and  Idea;  English  Translation,  vol.  I.,  p. 
341. 


MUSIC  181 

are  lifted  to  a  plane  which  is  above  that  of  every- 
day life,  in  so  far  as  the  hard-and-fastness  of  our 
everyday  standpoint  melts  away.  A  new  stand- 
point emerges  in  which  feeling  predominates,  which 
is  characterised  by  very  little  abstract  conception, 
but  in  which  we  none  the  less  recognise  that  mind 
has  lifted  itself  above  the  plane  of  the  differences 
which  really  fall  within  it  and  are  not  final.  The 
incrustations  and  inhibitions  which  hold  down  the 
"subliminal  self"  are  in  part,  at  least,  removed, 
and  there  arises  a  new  order  of  certainty.  But  just 
as  I  showed  you  in  the  earlier  lectures  that  the 
revelations  of  the  subliminal  self  were  no  safe  guide 
by  themselves,  and  must  be  made  the  servants  of 
reason  and  not  its  masters,  so  the  emotions  which 
music  awakens  do  not  all  stand  on  the  same  footing. 
Between  the  strains  of  a  valse  and  a  sonata  of 
Beethoven  there  is  a  great  difference,  which  cannot 
be  referred  to  any  difference  in  strength  of  feeling. 
It  can  only  depend  on  the  extent  to  which  mind  is 
bodied  forth  in  the  latter  as  distinguished  from  the 
former.  We  may  derive  satisfaction  from  the 
sonata  even  though  badly  executed.  But  perfection 
in  execution  cannot  make  the  valse  appeal  to  us  in 
the  same  way.  Technique  is  of  high  value  and 
importance.  Without  it  the  greatest  artist  could 
not  express  his  mind.  But  it  is  rather  a  means  to 
an  end  than  an  end  in  itself.  It  is  only  mind  that 
can  satisfy  mind,  whether  in  music,  or  painting,  or 
sculpture,  or  poetry.  Mind  seeks  to  find  itself 
here,  just  as  it  does  in  other  aspects  of  the  world 


182  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  ,. 

as  it  seems.  This  is  why  the  "  own  composition  " 
at  a  concert  is  often  so  wearying  to  those  who  do 
not  belong  to  the  class  of  listeners  who  go  there  in 
search  of  technique  only. 

What  I  have  been  trying  to  set  before  you  is 
still  more  apparent  in  poetry.  The  greatest  quality 
of  poetry  is,  as  has  often  been  said,  that  of  "size." 
In  other  words,  a  really  great  poem  must  express  a 
really  great  mind.  In  poetry,  as  in  music,  it  is  not 
an  abstract  conception  that  we  look  for.  It  is  an 
individual  reality  complete  in  itself  and  depending 
on  no  meaning  outside  itself.  The  universal  and 
particular  moments  in  this  individuality  are  not 
broken  up  by  reflection,  as  is  the  case  in  science  or 
even  in  everyday  experience.  Reflection  is,  of 
course,  operative ;  otherwise  in  poetry  we  should  be 
without  permanence  of  expression,  the  contrast  to 
the  fleeting  particulars  that  the  actual  perception 
of  nature  rescues  only  for  the  instant.  But  the 
permanent  moment  in  poetry  does  not  take  the 
form  of  an  abstraction,  existing  out  of  time  and 
space.  It  may  be  a  sensuous  image,  provided  that 
what  gives  its  characteristic  and  significance  to  the 
image  is  its  embodiment  of  mind,  its  presentation 
of  what  is  only  for  mind,  and  is  therefore  mind 
itself  presented  in  this  form.  This  is  why  art  is 
the  form  of  the  individual  which  gives  us  the 
middle  term  between  nature  as  essentially  external, 
and  thought  as  essentially  above  time  and  space. 
We  cannot  reduce  beauty  to  principles  of  thought, 
or  to  relations  of  space  and  time,  Beauty  and  the 


POETBY  183 

object  world  of  art  constitute  a  realm  by  them- 
selves, a  realm  complete  in  itself,  an  aspect  of  the 
world  as  it  seems  which  is  real,  as  every  other 
aspect  is  real,  because  it  is  an  aspect  in  which 
mind  presents  itself  to  itself,  is  for  itself,  a  phase 
which  cannot  be  explained  away  or  melted  down, 
because  it  is  one  among  the  ultimate  forms  of 
reality. 

That  poetry  exists  only  in  the  reflective  con- 
sciousness is  clear  when  we  consider  what  a  poem 
is.  On  paper  it  is  but  a  series  of  marks  made 
with  printer's  ink,  and  it  has  no  other  significance 
either  to  the  dog  that  chews  the  paper,  or  to  the 
foreigner  who  knows  not  the  language.  To  a 
person  devoid  of  sense  of  poetic  form  it  is  but  a 
series  of  somewhat  obscure  and  ill-framed  sentences. 
But  to  him  who  finds  in  it  poetry  it  is  very  different. 
For  such  an  one  the  poem  is  an  individual  fact  of 
experience,  but  differs  from  other  individual  facts 
of  experience  in,  among  other  qualities,  its  per- 
manence. However  often  the  book  is  shut,  when 
it  is  opened  the  same  thing  is  perceived.  The  ink 
may  have  faded,  the  paper  may  be  torn,  but  the 
expression  never  changes.  This  is  even  more 
apparent  in  the  case  of  music.  The  sounds  in  each 
performance  are  different,  and,  as  unique  individuals 
of  experience,  are  there  for  the  first  time.  The 
execution  may  vary  greatly.  But  the  impression 
made  is  the  same,  because  what  is  expressed  is  not 
of  the  transient  character  of  events  of  space  and 
time,  but  belongs  to  a  higher  plane  of  mind,  yet  a 


184  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  i. 

plane  which  has  no  existence  except  as  embodied 
in  the  sensuous  form  which  the  art  of  the  musician 
has  created.  All  forms  of  art  have  this  character- 
istic as  their  essence — that  the  moment  of  uni- 
versality in  them  lifts  their  creations  above  the 
transitory  and  fleeting  nature  of  the  instant  in 
which  they  are  apprehended,  and  detaches  them 
from  the  relationship  of  place  in  the  Universe. 
The  object  whose  nature  is  so  transformed  may  be 
a  very  simple  one.  A  Dutch  landscape  painter 
has  placed  before  us,  say,  a  peasant's  cottage  and 
some  animals.  Any  one  who  cares  is  attracted 
and  moved  by  the  picture.  Why?  However 
minute  and  careful  the  work,  it  is  but  patches  of 
paint  on  a  canvas,  and  the  material  is  far  inferior 
to  that  of  the  original,  nature.  Yet  it  moves  us  as 
nature  cannot.  The  reason  is  that  the  artist  has 
detached  and  fashioned  the  scene  in  such  a  way  as 
to  lift  us  above  the  merely  sensuous.  A  sense  of 
aloofness  from  the  contingency  of  our  surroundings 
comes  to  us,  and  of  aloofness  from  the  particularism 
of  ourselves.  The  moment  ceases  to  interest  us,  to 
be  important.  The  peasants,  the  cottage,  the 
cattle,  have  long  since  passed  away,  nay,  they 
never  were !  But  they  express  and  engross  us  in 
that  stillness  and  peace  of  nature  which  they  do 
not  symbolise  as  a  word  symbolises  a  concept,  but 
embody  as  a  universal  in  individual  form.  They 
lift  us  towards  a  view  of  the  world  from  the  plat- 
form of  those  who  are  spectators  of  all  time  and 
all  existence,  Jn  this  fashion,  Art  mediates 


AET  FOE  ART'S  SAKE  185 

between  thought  and  sense,  and  so  fulfils  a  special 
function  which  can  be  fulfilled  by  no  other  form  of 
spiritual  activity. 

What  has  been  said  may  serve  to  cast  some 
light  on  the  famous  saying,  "Art  for  Art's  sake." 
For  it  follows,  in  the  first  place,  that  in  the  concrete 
fact  of  Art  we  can  never  separate  form  from  matter. 
We  can  never  value  a  poem  merely  for  its  cadence, 
or  only  for  its  meaning.  It  is  an  end  in  itself,  and 
is  to  be  valued  for  its  own  sake  and  not  for  that  of 
some  end  or  standard  beyond.  In  the  second  place, 
Art  can  never  be  explained  in  terms  of  anything 
else,  for  that  would  mean  that  as  a  form  of  reality 
it  was  derivative  only,  and  not  self-subsisting.  We 
may,  indeed,  show  its  place  among  the  planes  or 
stages  from  which  Mind  comprehends  what  is  in 
ultimate  analysis  Mind.  But,  just  because  it  is 
equally  real  with  every  other  plane  or  stage,  every 
attempt  at  a  definition  of  it  is  tautologous.  To 
define  a  poem  as  "the  succession  of  experiences — 
sounds,  images,  thoughts,  emotions — through  which 
I  pass  when  I  am  reading  as  poetically  as  I  can  "- 
is,  not  to  define,  but  to  point  to  a  "  this  "  beyond 
which  I  cannot  get.  The  poem,  like  the  picture 
and  the  sonata,  is  no  copy  of  nature ;  its  appeal  is 
to  the  imagination  which  is  contemplative,  and  not 
to  that  which  is  merely  reproductive.  In  the  whole 
which  the  poet  creates  neither  form  nor  matter  can 
be  abstracted  or  altered.  The  parody,  which  can 
make  the  hero  of  the  poem  into  a  ridiculous  figure, 
depends  on  this  fact,  Where  form  is  less  obviously 


186  FINITE  MIND  [LKT.  i. 

essential  than  it  is  in  verse,  as,  for  instance,  in  the 
novel,  parody  becomes  easy,  as  in  Thackeray's 
parodies  of  Scott  and  other  novelists  of  the 
romantic  school.  There,  by  an  alteration  of  form, 
the  significance  of  the  whole  is  transformed  from 
what  is  serious  into  what  is  ludicrous.  This  is 
more  difficult  with  verse,  where  form  predominates, 
but  it  has  often  been  done.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
form  may  be  reproduced  apart  from  the  matter  in 
the  parody,  and  then  the  result  is  uninteresting  for 
want  of  content,  and  is  merely  a  tour  deforce. 

It  can  hardly  be  too  much  insisted  on  that,  in 
the  work  of  art,  form  and  content  are  really 
inseparable.  What  would  Hamlet  or  Paradise  Lost 
be  without  the  presence  of  both  ?  The  combination 
is  what  gives  these  poems  their  "  size."  And  this 
combination  is  no  addition  of  elements  that  are 
independent  of  one  another.  The  gift  of  the  artist 
is  not  to  be  a  thinker,  or  to  set  before  his  mind  an 
abstract  conception,  and  then  to  see  how  he  can 
embody  it  by  virtue  of  his  technical  skill.  His  gift 
is  rather  that  of  creative  imagination,  in  the  forma- 
tions of  which  his  qualities  are  indissolubly  fused, 
just  as  the  qualities  of  form  and  content  are  indis- 
solubly fused  in  his  work.  It  is  so  that  we  get  in 
the  creation  of  the  artist  something  that  appeals  to 
us  far  more  vividly  than  the  reasoning  of  the 
philosopher.  I  remember  reading  in  the  news- 
papers that  someone  had  written  to  Cardinal 
Newman  to  ask  him  to  state  precisely  what  he  had 
in  his  mind  when  he  wrote  "  Lead,  Kindly  Light ! " 


POETRY  187 

The  Cardinal  was  said  to  have  replied  that  he  did 
not  know.  Of  course,  he  did  not  know !  The 
verses  were  the  work  of  an  artist,  not  of  a  theo- 
logian, and  that  is  what  was  not  realised  by  an 
excellent  clergyman  who  tried,  without  consulting 
their  author,  to  improve  them  by  adding  a  verse 
setting  forth  their  theological  significance. 

The  present  Professor  of  Poetry  in  Oxford 
University  has  put  this  so  admirably,  in  the  course 
of  an  inaugural  address  which  he  delivered  not  long 
ago,  that  I  will  quote  his  words  :  "  Pure  poetry  is 
not  the  decoration  of  a  preconceived  and  clearly 
defined  matter ;  it  springs  from  the  creative  impulse 
of  a  vague  imaginative  mass  pressing  for  develop- 
ment and  definition.  If  the  poet  always  knew 
exactly  what  he  meant  to  say,  why  should  he  write 
the  poem  ?  The  poem  would,  in  fact,  already  be 
written.  For  only  its  completion  can  reveal,  even 
to  him,  exactly  what  he  wanted.  When  he  began, 
and  while  he  was  at  work,  he  did  not  possess  its 
meaning ;  it  possessed  him.  It  was  not  a  fully 
formed  soul  asking  for  a  body  :  it  was  an  inchoate 
soul  in  the  inchoate  body  of  perhaps  two  or  three 
vague  ideas  and  a  few  scattered  phrases.  The 
growing  of  this  body,  its  full  stature  and  perfect 
shape,  was  the  same  thing  as  the  gradual  self-defini- 
tion of  the  meaning.  And  this  is  the  reason  why 
such  poems  strike  us  as  creations,  not  manufactures, 
and  have  the  magical  effect  which  mere  decoration 
cannot  produce.  This  is  also  the  reason  why, 
if  we  insist  on  asking  for  the  meaning  of  such 


188  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

a  poem,  we  can  only  be  answered,  '  It  means 
itself.'"* 

In  his  Conversations  with  Goethe,  Eckermann 
describes  how  Goethe  instructed  him  in  what  to 
look  for  in  the  works  of  art  that  were  shown  to 
him :  "  We  then  opened  the  portfolios,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  the  examination  of  the  drawings  and 
engravings.  .  .  .  Goethe  in  such  matters  takes 
great  pains  on  my  account,  and  I  see  that  it  is  his 
intention  to  give  me  a  higher  degree  of  penetration 
in  the  observation  of  works  of  art.  He  shows  me 
only  what  is  perfect  in  its  kind,  and  endeavours  to 
make  me  apprehend  the  intention  and  merit  of  the 
artist,  that  I  may  learn  to  pursue  the  thought  of 
the  best  and  feel  like  the  best.  '  This,'  said  he,  '  is 
the  way  to  cultivate  what  we  call  taste.  Taste  is 
only  to  be  educated  by  contemplation,  not  of  the 
tolerably  good,  but  of  the  truly  excellent.  I 
therefore  show  you  only  the  best  works,  and  when 
you  are  grounded  in  these  you  will  have  a  standard 
for  the  rest  which  you  will  know  how  to  value 
without  overrating  them.  And  I  will  show  you  the 
best  in  each  class,  that  you  may  perceive  that  no 
class  is  to  be  despised,  but  that  each  gives  delight 
when  a  man  of  genius  attains  his  highest  point. 
For  instance,  this  piece  by  a  French  artist  is  galant 
to  a  degree  which  you  see  nowhere  else,  and  is 
therefore  a  model  in  its  way.' 

"  Goethe  handed  me  the  engraving,  and  I  looked 

*  Poetry  for  Poetry's  Sake — An  Inaugural  Address  delivered 
on  5th  June  1901— p.  28.     By  Professor  A.  C.  Bradley. 


GOETHE  189 

at  it  with  delight.  There  was  a  beautiful  room  in 
a  summer  residence,  with  windows  looking  into  a 
garden,  where  one  might  see  the  most  graceful 
figures.  A  handsome  lady,  aged  about  thirty,  was 
sitting  with  a  music  book  from  which  she  seemed 
to  have  just  sung.  Sitting  by  her,  a  little  further 
back,  was  a  young  girl  of  about  fifteen.  At  the 
open  window  behind  stood  another  young  lady 
holding  a  lute,  upon  which  she  seemed  still  to  be 
sounding.  At  this  moment  a  young  gentleman 
was  entering,  to  whom  the  eyes  of  the  ladies  were 
directed.  He  seemed  to  have  interrupted  the 
music,  and  his  slight  bow  gave  the  notion  that  he 
was  making  an  apology  which  the  ladies  were 
gratified  to  hear.  'That,  I  think,'  said  Goethe,  'as 
galant  as  any  piece  of  Calderon's,  and  you  have 
now  seen  the  very  best  thing  of  the  kind.  But  what 
say  you  to  this?'  With  these  words  he  handed 
me  some  etchings  by  Koos,  the  famous  painter  of 
animals ;  they  were  all  of  sheep,  in  every  posture 
and  situation.  The  simplicity  of  their  counte- 
nances, the  ugliness  and  shabbiness  of  the  fleece,  all 
was  represented  with  the  utmost  fidelity,  as  if  it 
were  nature  itself.  'I  always  feel  uneasy,'  said 
Goethe,  '  when  I  look  at  these  beasts.  Their  state, 
so  limited,  dull,  gaping,  and  dreaming,  excites  in  me 
such  sympathy  that  I  fear  I  shall  become  a  sheep, 
and  almost  think  the  artist  must  have  been  one. 
At  all  events  it  is  wonderful  how  Koos  has  been 
able  to  think  and  feel  himself  into  the  very  soul  of 
these  creatures,  so  as  to  make  the  internal  character 


190  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

peer  with  such  force  through  the  outward  covering. 
Here  you  see  what  a  great  talent  can  do  when  it 
keeps  steady  to  subjects  which  are  congenial  with 
its  nature.'     'Has  not  then,'  said  I,    'this  artist 
painted  also  dogs,  cats,  and  beasts  of  prey  with 
similar  truth ;  nay,  with  this  great  gift  of  assuming 
a  mental  state  foreign  to  himself,  has  he  not  been 
able    to    delineate    human    character  with   equal 
fidelity?'     'No,'  said  Goethe,  'all  that  lay  out  of 
his  sphere ;   but  the   gentle  grass-eating  animals, 
sheep,   goats,  cows,  and  the   like,  he   was  never 
weary  of  repeating ;  this  was  the  peculiar  province 
of  his  talent   which  he  did  not  quit  during  the 
whole  course  of  his  life.     And  in  this  he  did  well. 
A   sympathy   with  these  animals  was  born  with 
him,  a  knowledge  of  their  psychological  condition 
was  given  to  him,  and  thus  he  had  so  fine  an  eye 
for  their  bodily  structure.     Other  creatures  were, 
perhaps,  not  so  transparent  to  him,  and  therefore 
he  felt  neither  calling  nor  impulse  to  paint  them." 
In  a  passage  a  little  further  on  Goethe  points 
out  the   difference   between   science  and  art.     In 
science  the  treatment  is  nothing  and  the  discovery 
everything.     In  art  the  idea  is  common  property. 
It  is  the  power  of  embodying  it  in  a  concrete  work 
that  makes  the  artist,  it  is  this  power  for  which  we 
look  in  him.     In  his  Laocoon  Lessing  expresses  the 
same  thought :   "  The  aim  of  science  is  truth ;  the 
aim  of  the  arts,  on  the  contrary,  is  to  give  artistic 
pleasure.     The  artist  need  not  copy  or   even   be 
true  to  nature.     He  may  achieve  his  aim  in  repre- 


THE  AIM  OF  AKT  191 

senting  the  commonest  objects."  For  that  aim  is 
not  mere  nature  any  more  than  mere  thought.  It 
is  rather,  to  use  a  phrase  of  Schopenhauer's,  the 
Idea,  and  therefore  the  Ideal,  with  which  he  con- 
cerns himself,  and  to  which  he  moulds  matter  and 
form  alike. 

The  work  of  art  is  not  to  instruct,  not  to  ex- 
pound abstract  conceptions.  It  has  always  to 
bring  its  content  before  the  mind's  eye,  not  in  its 
generality  as  such,  but  with  this  generality  made 
individual  and  sensuously  particularised.  When 
Byron  says : — 

"  I  live  not  in  myself,  but  I  become 
Portion  of  that  around  me,  and  to  me 
High  mountains  are  a  feeling," 

he  is  expressing  the  standpoint  of  poetical  emotion 
from  which  idealism  is  embodied  in  feeling  about 
nature.  The  conception  which  qualifies  such  feeling 
could  never  be  expressed  abstractly  with  the  same 
vividness,  perhaps  it  could  never  be  expressed  at  all  so 
to  seem  real.  But  the  poet  makes  us  feel  its  truth. 
It  is  the  function  of  genius  to  lift  us,  in  the  medium 
of  what  is  particular  and  immediate,  to  a  higher 
plane,  and  so  to  set  the  world  in  a  new  light. 
The  spectator  is,  as  it  were,  lifted  up,  so  that  he 
feels  himself  above  and  beyond  the  hard-and-fast 
distinctions  which  are,  at  a  lower  plane,  assumed 
as  reality.  But  the  ideal  with  which  he  is  brought 
face  to  face  is  not  in  contrast  with  a  reality  that  is 
hard-and-fast.  It  is  just  that  reality  raised  to  a 
higher  plane.  The  world  as  it  is  for  art  is  what  it 


192  FINITE  MINI)  [L«r.  ,. 

is  in  virtue  of  thought,  which,  as  it  were,  shines 
through  a  sensuous  garment.  But  the  garment 
that  shines  is  just  as  much  a  part  of  the  world  of 
reality  as  was  the  garment  before  it  shone.  In  the 
world  of  art  we  are  still  in  the  real  world,  in  the 
same  way  as  the  man  of  science  who  has  passed 
from  the  phenomenon  to  its  law  is  still  in  the  real 
world.  He  looks  at  the  water  before  him.  He 
thinks  of  the  law  of  its  chemical  constitution  out  of 
oxygen  and  hydrogen  atoms ;  yet  it  is  still  water 
for  him,  though  its  meaning  and  the  nature  of  its 
reality  have  become  enlarged  for  him.  The  par- 
ticular concerns  him  less,  the  universal  more.  So 
with  the  artist :  he  sets  reality  in  a  new  light  for 
us,  a  light  which  removes  us  farther  from  particu- 
larism : — 

"  Art  may  tell  a  truth 

Obliquely,  do  the  thing  shall  breed  the  thought, 
Nor  wrong  the  thought,  missing  the  mediate  words. 
So  you  may  paint  your  picture,  twice  show  truth, 
Beyond  mere  imagery  on  the  wall, — 
So,  note  for  note,  bring  music  from  your  mind, 
Deeper  than  ever  the  andante  dived, — 
So  write  a  book  shall  mean,  beyond  the  facts, 
Suffice  the  eye  and  save  the  soul  beside."  * 

It  is  time  to  turn  again  to  the  significance  of 
Art  from  the  speculative  side.  We  have  approached 
sufficiently  near  to  the  nature  of  the  beautiful  to 
get  some  inkling  of  this  significance.  The  topic 
of  the  meaning  of  Art  and  the  divisions  into  which 
^Esthetics  fall  is  one  so  vast,  and  so  surrounded 
with  materials  which  generation  after  generation 

*  Browning,  at  the  end  of  the  Ring  and  the  Book. 


ART  AND  REALITY  193 

has  piled  up,  that  nothing  short  of  a  treatise  is 
sufficient  to  contain  an  account  of  it.  Those  of 
you  who  wish  to  pursue  this  topic  further  must 
turn  to  such  books  in  this  department  as  those  of 
Hegel  and  Bosanquet.  But  with  even  the  glimpse 
we  have  got  of  the  nature  of  the  beautiful  it  is 
possible  to  get  some  understanding  of  the  place  of 
Art  as  a  stage  towards  reality. 

Let  us  imagine  that  we  can  present  to  ourselves 
a  view  of  the  world  as  exhibiting  no  relations 
which  go  beyond  those  of  externality  to  each  other 
of  events  in  time  and  space.  Let  us  suppose,  if  we 
can,  that  the  mind  passively  receives  a  series  of 
impressions  which  assume  in  consciousness  the 
form  of  a  stream  of  isolated  feelings.  Let  us  try 
to  imagine,  further,  that  the  mind  which  is  passively 
conscious  of  these  feelings  reasons  about  them 
in  a  fashion  which  neither  imparts  to  them  nor 
takes  from  them  any  portion  of  the  system  in 
which  they  are  real.  The  conceptions  which  the 
mind  forms,  and  its  purposes  in  forming  these  con- 
ceptions, will  be  abstract  and  separate  from  the 
concrete  feelings  about  which  the  reasoning  takes 
place.  Now  in  the  real  universe  we  find  no 
analogue  of  such  a  process.  We  saw  that  the 
mind  and  its  object  cannot  be  separated.  We 
found  that  even  in  our  everyday  experience  that 
experience  was  continuously  moulded  through  the 
ends  and  purposes  which  determined  the  percipient 
in  organising  knowledge.  But  I  told  you  in  the 
end  of  the  third  lecture  I  delivered  here  last  year, 

N 


194  FINITE  MIND  [LKT.  i. 

how  Kant,  in  his  Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  had 
failed  to  realise  this,  and  how  he  had  tried  to  treat 
experience  as  something  that  could  be  peeled  into 
layers  like  an  onion,  as  something  that  consisted  of 
elements,  contributed  by  sense  and  understanding 
respectively,  which  were  in  some  fashion  self- 
subsisting  and  independent  of  each  other,  and 
which  could  therefore  be  considered  as  separable 
in  fact.  The  result  was  that  for  Kant  the  real 
world  was  limited  by  what  could  be  expressed 
through  the  conceptions  of  substance,  cause,  and 
reciprocity.  On  the  other  side  of  the  gulf  which 
reason  had  discovered  lay  a  partly  subjective  world 
in  which  the  Ideas  of  our  practical  reason,  of  the 
moral  world,  lay.  To  this  unreal  world  must  for 
him  be  relegated  such  ideals  as  those  of  God, 
Freedom,  and  Immortality,  abstract  conceptions 
which  the  constitution  of  reason  compelled  us  to 
believe  to  be  realisable  somehow,  but  never  here 
or  now.  It  became  obvious  to  Kant  that  this 
huge  gap  between  the  faculties  of  the  mind  as  well 
as  between  their  objects  must  in  some  sort  be 
shown  as  bridged  over,  if  we  were  to  be  capable  at 
all  of  understanding  how  it  was  the  world  seemed, 
as  it  did  seem  to  us,  to  present  all  these  aspects, 
and  not  only  the  first  kind.  He  had  divided  the 
mind  into  three  faculties,  that  of  Conception,  that 
of  Judgment,  and  that  of  Reason.  The  first  gave 
us  reality,  but  reality  as  but  mechanical.  The  last 
gave  us  the  ideal,  but  the  ideal  as  separated  from 
the  real  world  by  a  gulf.  If,  then,  the  apparent 


KANT'S  CRITIQUE  OF  JUDGMENT   195 

continuity  of  our  actual  attitude  towards  life  was 
to  be  accounted  for,  there  must  be  a  faculty  which 
produced  the  semblance  of  ideality  in  the  region  of 
direct  perception,  and  the  semblance  of  direct  per- 
ception in  the  region  of  the  ideal.  This  faculty 
was  that  of  judgment,  and  its  work  was  examined 
and  its  limits  denned  by  Kant  in  his  Critique  of 
Judgment. 

It  is  a  tradition  in  the  philosophical  world  that 
the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  influenced  the  develop- 
ment of  speculative  thought  less  than  did  the 
Critique  of  Judgment.  The  truth  which  underlies 
the  tradition  is  that  in  the  latter  book  Kant  came 
very  near  the  position  which  was  common  to 
Aristotle  and  the  German  thinkers  of  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Here  he  set  out 
a  view  of  the  individual  in  which  the  universal  of 
reason  and  the  particular  of  sensation  were  no 
longer  divorced,  as  was,  at  least  to  a  considerable 
extent,  the  case  in  the  other  parts  of  his  system. 
It  is  true  that  the  union  is  allowed  to  possess  reality 
only  of  a  subjective  kind,  as  a  regulative  principle  in 
judgment  about  experience,  which  experience  thus 
comes  to  seem  as  though  it  contained  individuals 
of  beauty  and  organisation  in  which  the  ideal  can- 
not be  regarded  as  abstract  merely,  or  otherwise 
than  hi  indissoluble  combination  with  sense.  Still, 
so  far  as  he  allowed  to  such  individuals  any  reality 
at  all,  they  formed  a  true  feature  of  the  world  as 
comprehended  by  us,  a  world  from  which  we  could 
not  get  away.  For  him  the  beautiful  was  a  fact, 


196  FINITE  MIND  [LKT.  «. 

and  it  was  quite  different  from  the  merely  pleasant, 
which  was  what  it  was  because  it  satisfied  a 
purpose  of  a  particular  mind,  and  was  therefore 
merely  subjective.  It  was  also  different  from  the 
good,  because  this  was  what  it  was  in  virtue  of 
being  means  to  an  end.  For  Kant  beauty  and 
life  were  the  points  at  which  two  regions  met, 
where  reason  was  represented  in  the  world  of 
sense,  and  sense  was  represented  in  the  world  of 
reason.  Only  in  abstraction  could  the  beautiful 
and  the  living  be  broken  up  into  their  moments. 
For  in  them  there  was  no  division  between  means 
and  end. 

But  Kant,  as  I  have  told  you,  while  he  declared 
that  this  was  so,  stopped  short  at  admitting  that 
it  was  so  otherwise  than  sub  modo,  for  a  particular 
faculty  only.  He  never  got  away  from  the  arti- 
ficial antithesis,  which  pervades  his  system,  of  sub- 
jective thought  and  objective  things,  of  abstract 
universality  and  sensuous  particularity.  Of  the 
Critique  of  Judgment,  Hegel  says  :  "  This  criticism 
forms  the  starting-point  for  the  true  conception  of 
artistic  beauty.  Yet  this  conception  had  to  over- 
come the  Kantian  defects  before  it  could  assert 
itself  as  the  higher  grasp  of  the  true  unity  of 
necessity  and  freedom,  of  the  particular  and  the 
universal,  of  the  sensuous  and  the  rational.  And 
so  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  artistic  sense  of  a 
profound  and,  at  the  same  time,  philosophic  mind, 
was  beforehand  with  philosophy  as  such  in  demand- 
ing and  commanding  the  principle  of  totality  and 


HEGEL  AND  SCHILLER  197 

reconciliation,  as  against  that  abstract  endlessness 
of  reflective  thought,  that  duty  for  duty's  sake, 
that  intelligence  devoid  of  plastic  shape,  which 
apprehend  nature  and  reality,  sensation  and  feeling, 
as  a  mere  limit,  and  as  an  absolutely  hostile  element. 
For  Schiller  must  be  credited  with  the  great  merit 
of  having  broken  through  the  Kantian  subjectivity, 
and  having  dared  the  attempt  to  transcend  these 
limits  by  intellectually  grasping  the  principles  of 
unity  and  reconciliation  as  the  truth,  and  realising 
them  in  art.  Schiller,  in  his  aesthetic  discussions, 
did  not  simply  adhere  to  art  and  its  interest  with- 
out concerning  himself  about  its  relation  to  philo- 
sophy proper,  but  compared  his  interest  in  artistic 
beauty  with  the  principles  of  philosophy ;  and  it 
was  only  by  starting  from  the  latter,  and  by  their 
help,  that  he  penetrated  the  profounder  nature  of 
the  beautiful.  Thus  we  feel  it  to  be  a  feature  in 
one  period  of  his  works  that  he  has  busied  himself 
with  thought — more,  perhaps,  than  was  conducive 
to  their  unsophisticated  beauty  as  works  of  art. 
The  intentional  character  of  abstract  reflection  and 
even  the  interest  of  the  philosophical  ideas  are 
noticeable  in  many  of  his  poems.  This  has  been 
made  a  ground  of  censure  against  him,  especially 
by  way  of  blaming  and  depreciating  him  in  com- 
parison with  Goethe's  straightforwardness  and 
objectivity.  But  in  this  respect  Schiller,  as  poet, 
did  but  pay  the  debt  of  his  time ;  and  the 
reason  lay  in  a  perplexity  which  turned  out 
only  to  the  honour  of  that  sublime  soul  and  pro- 


198  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  i. 

found  character  and  to  the  profit  of  science  and 
cognition."  * 

Schiller,  though  penetrated  by  the  theoretical 
teaching  of  the  Critique  of  Judgment,  was  not 
dominated  by  it,  and  he  was  able,  as  Hegel  points 
out,  to  carry  matters  a  stage  further  on.  Jena,  in 
the  early  years  of  that  century,  was  a  fruitful  place. 
There  Schiller  and  Goethe  not  only  met  each  other 
but  met  Schelling  and  Hegel.  The  skeleton  of  the 
theory  of  art  became  clothed  with  living  flesh  and 
blood.  Hegel  himself  there  learned  the  lesson 
which  taught  him  to  seek  to  gather  together  in  his 
hand  the  strands  of  which  he  had  such  ample 
opportunity  to  lay  hold.  For  him  the  region  of 
the  beautiful,  the  region  too  of  the  other  forms  that 
belong  to  art,  was  the  region  in  which  Mind,  the 
Idea,  exists,  not  as  philosophy  conceives  and  sets 
it  forth  in  abstract  terms,  but  "as  developed  into 
concrete  form  fit  for  reality,  and  as  having  entered 
into  unity  with  this  reality.  For  the  idea  as  such, 
although  it  is  the  essentially  and  actually  true,  is 
yet  the  truth  in  its  generality  which  has  not  yet 
taken  objective  shape  ;  but  the  Idea  as  the  beautiful 
in  art  is  at  once  the  Idea  when  specially  determined 
as  in  its  essence  individual  reality,  and  also  an  in- 
dividual shape  of  reality  essentially  destined  to 
embody  and  reveal  the  Idea.  This  amounts  to 
enunciating  the  requirement  that  the  Idea,  and  its 
plastic  mould  as  concrete  reality,  are  to  be  made 
completely  adequate  to  one  another.  When  reduced 

*  Philosophy  of  Fine  Art,  Bosanquet's  Translation,  p.  116. 


CA&LYLE 

to  such  a  form  the  Idea,  as  a  reality  moulded  in 
conformity  with  the  conception  of  the  Idea,  is  the 
Ideal."* 

Carlyle  in  his  own  way  puts  it  in  words  which 
I  may  quote  to  you  : — 

"Another  matter  it  is,  however,  when  your 
Symbol  has  intrinsic  meaning,  and  is  of  itself  fit 
that  men  should  unite  round  it.  Let  but  the  God- 
like manifest  itself  to  Sense ;  let  but  Eternity  look, 
more  or  less  visibly,  through  the  Time-Figure 
(Zeit-bild)  \  Then  is  it  fit  that  men  unite  there ; 
and  worship  together  before  such  Symbol ;  and  so 
from  day  to  day,  and  from  age  to  age,  superadd  to 
it  a  new  divineness. 

"  Of  this  latter  sort  are  all  true  Works  of  Art ; 
in  them  (if  thou  dost  know  a  Work  of  Art  from  a 
Daub  of  Artifice)  wilt  thou  discern  Eternity  looking 
through  Time ;  the  Godlike  rendered  visible.  .  .  . 

"...  Highest  of  all  Symbols  are  those 
wherein  the  Artist  or  Poet  has  risen  into  Prophet, 
and  all  men  can  recognise  a  present  God,  and 
worship  the  same ;  I  mean  religious  Symbols. 
Various  enough  have  been  such  religious  Symbols, 
what  we  call  Religious ;  as  men  stood  in  this  stage 
of  Culture  or  the  other,  and  could  worse  or  better 
body  forth  the  Godlike :  some  Symbols  with  a 
transient  intrinsic  worth ;  many  with  only  an 
extrinsic.  If  thou  ask  to  what  height  man  has 
carried  it  in  this  manner,  look  on  our  divinest 
Symbol ;  on  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  His  Life,  and 
*  Ibid.,  P.  141. 


200  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  i. 

His  Biography,  and  what  followed  therefrom. 
Higher  has  the  human  thought  not  yet  reached : 
this  is  Christianity  and  Christendom ;  a  Symbol  of 
quite  perennial,  infinite  character;  whose  signifi- 
cance will  ever  demand  to  be  anew  inquired  into, 
and  anew  made  manifest."  * 

Thus  in  the  picture  gallery  of  Art  we  have 
Reason  which  is  intuitive,  the  complete  fusion  of 
the  universal  and  the  particular,  the  individual  in 
a  form  in  which  thought  and  feeling  have  in  this,  as 
elsewhere,  fallen  together,  the  true  relation  between 
Logic  and  Nature.  The  here  and  the  now  are 
transcended.  The  fleeting  impression  is  rescued 
from  the  flux  of  time  and  the  relativity  of  place. 
It  receives  immortality  from  the  spirit  which  it 
embodies,  a  spirit  which,  in  its  turn,  only  in  this 
embodiment  gains  its  unique  and  incomparable 
character  as  concrete  fact.  The  words  of  an 
Aristotle  or  of  a  Newton  may  cease  to  be  for  us 
lasting  and  final  words.  The  words  of  a  Homer 
or  a  Shakespeare  are  imperishable.  For  as  men 
and  women  we  cannot  transcend  the  plane  at  which 
they  represent  the  most  that  is  possible  in  immediate 
presentation. 

*  Carlyle,  Sartor  Resartus,  Chapter  on  Symbols. 


LECTUKE  II 

I  SPENT  my  time  yesterday  in  examining  the  human 
mind  in  phases  in  which  it  touches  the  infinite.  In 
the  earlier  lectures  of  this  second  course,  I  began 
by  approaching  mind  from  the  side  on  which  it 
presents  an  aspect  that  is  absolute.  In  this  latter 
part  of  the  course,  I  am  starting  from  the  aspect  in 
which  mind  is  finite,  and  working  up  to  the  level 
at  which  it  attains  to  the  infinite.  Yesterday  I 
took  that  phase  of  the  human  mind  in  which  its 
perception  is  immediate,  and  in  which  what  it  per- 
ceives yet  represents  knowledge  that  is  absolute. 
I  took  the  immediate  as  it  appears  in  Art,  and  I 
showed  you  that  in  Art  the  mind  transcends  its 
own  finite  forms.  In  Art  it  is  quite  true  that  that 
with  which  we  are  in  contact  is  in  its  nature 
something  that  has  a  locality  in  space  and  a 
position  in  time.  It  may  be  but  the  vanishing 
patches  of  paint  upon  a  canvas.  But  what  the 
mind  really  has  before  it  in  Art  is,  not  the  patches 
of  paint  upon  the  canvas,  but  itself,  directly 
revealed  in  the  highest  form.  Art  is  no  matter  of 
inference ;  Art  is  not  something  to  which  we  come 
mediately.  It  is  that  which  is  directly  presented, 

201 


202  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  it. 

but  presented,  as  it  were,  in  a  sensuous  form 
through  which  it  shines.  Absolute  mind  as  dis- 
closed in  Art  is  not  something  which  is  behind  the 
sensuous  form,  but  is  in  the  sensuous  form,  and 
gives  its  meaning  and  character  to  that  form. 
Therefore,  although  the  patches  of  paint  are  but 
patches  of  paint,  and  although  the  canvas  is  but 
canvas,  what  is  represented  by  the  hand  of  genius 
is  something,  as  I  showed  you,  which  is  above 
time  and  space  in  the  sense  that  time  and  space 
are  indifferent  to  it.  The  meaning  for  us  of 
what  is  in  the  landscape  of  the  Dutch  painter 
remains,  although  the  figures  have  no  reality,  and 
although  the  scene  belongs  to  a  period  of  time 
which  is  past,  or  even  never  was.  The  significance 
is  one  which  transcends  the  particularism  of  the 
observer  and  the  observed,  and  in  it  you  have  the 
directly  revealed  manifestation  of  that  side  of  mind 
in  which  it  is  no  longer  finite  but  has  transcended 
the  limits  of  its  own  finitude.  In  other  words,  you 
have,  in  what  is  represented  in  the  picture,  mind 
comprehending  itself  in  its  fulness. 

Now  that  is  one  phase  of  mind  in  which  it 
discloses  itself  in  immediacy,  and  there  is  another 
phase  of  mind  in  which,  even  for  us  men  and 
women,  the  higher  aspect  is  disclosed  in  a  different 
form  of  immediacy.  Religion  is  something  just 
as  real  as  is  Art.  In  Religion  you  have  an  aspect 
of  the  human  mind  in  which  it  is  in  contrast  with 
the  human  mind  as  you  have  it  in  ethical  relations. 
In  Ethics  you  are  always  confronted  with  this,  that 


MORALITY  AND  RELIGION         203 

beyond  the  deed  that  is  done  lies  another  deed 
which  has  yet  to  be  accomplished.  In  the  duty 
which  you  have  to  another  person  to  treat  him  as 
a  person,  as  you  yourself  would  be  treated,  you 
are  still  in  the  relationship  of  the  one  and  the 
many.  That  other  person  is,  like  yourself  in  that 
relation,  finite,  and  beyond  him  and  you,  beyond 
even  the  society  of  which  you  both  form  members, 
there  are  levels  which  you  have  not  reached,  and 
which,  if  you  did  reach  them,  would  still  leave  you 
confronted  with  something  beyond,  separating  you 
from  infinitude.  In  Ethics,  in  other  words,  you 
are  capable  only  of  endless  progress,  in  which  the 
self  never  reaches  its  own  goal  or  its  own  self- 
comprehension.  But  in  Religion,  the  essence  of 
which  is  the  surrender  by  the  self  of  its  finite  ends 
and  the  acceptance  of  the  ends  of  God  in  place  of 
these  finite  ends,  you  have  the  transcendence  of 
that  relation  of  finitude  in  which  the  self  is  always 
confronted  with  another  beyond.  In  Religion  the 
self  finds  its  true  life  in  the  life  of  God,  and  in  that 
way  the  contradiction  which  manifests  itself  at 
every  turn  of  its  finite  action  is  overcome. 

In  Religion  you  have  got  reality,  but  reality 
manifested,  like  reality  in  Art,  only  in  immediacy. 
You  have  it  in  the  sense  of  the  surrender  by 
the  will  of  its  finite  purposes.  In  Religion,  as 
in  Art,  you  are  dealing  with  what  is  immediate. 
It  is  in  feeling,  not  in  abstract  conception,  that 
Religion  dwells,  and  it  is  in  that  act  of  will 
which  assumes  the  form  of  the  surrender  of  the 


204  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  u. 

purposes  that  are  not  final  that  the  essence  of 
Religion  consists.  Therefore  in  Religion,  as  in 
Art,  what  you  are  dealing  with  is  not  abstract 
conception.  I  do  not  wish  you  to  understand  me 
as  conveying  to  you  that  one  ought  to,  or  indeed 
that  one  can,  separate  Art  and  Religion  and 
Thought  from  one  another  as  though  they  were 
the  manifestations  of  three  different  faculties  of  the 
mind.  On  the  contrary,  what  I  have  been  insist- 
ing on  throughout  the  whole  of  these  lectures  is 
that  we  must  start  from  the  mind  itself  as  final 
reality,  and  that  Art  in  the  form  of  feeling,  and 
Religion  in  the  form  of  the  consciousness  of  an  act 
of  will  completed,  and  Thought  as  the  other  form 
in  which  the  activity  of  the  mind  manifests  itself, 
are  three  forms,  but  three  forms  which  are  only 
separated  and  isolated  from  one  another  by  the 
act  of  the  very  self-consciousness  to  which  they 
belong,  and  within  which  they  are  merely  phases 
of  one  activity.  Nevertheless,  when  we  are  deal- 
ing with  that  aspect  with  which  Religion  is  con- 
cerned, we  are  dwelling  upon  that  which  concerns 
the  will,  as  distinguished  from  that  which  belongs 
to  the  sphere  of  the  beautiful  or  to  the  sphere  of 
contemplation. 

When  we  take  a  man  of  devout  character  who 
is  also  a  thinker,  when  we  take,  for  example,  the 
personality  of  such  a  man  as  Spinoza,  "the  God 
intoxicated,"  we  recognise  in  him  a  holy  man,  not 
on  account  of  his  thought,  but  on  account  of  his 
attitude  of  will,  the  attitude  of  will  which  manifested 


THE  RELIGIOUS  MAN  205 

itself  throughout  his  work,  the  resignation  of  the 
will  to  live,  and  the  acceptance  of  absolute  purpose. 
Nevertheless  we  are  always  aware  that  in  the  con- 
templation of  such  a  character  we  cannot  separate 
off  the  will  from  the  intellect,  but  that  the  one 
profoundly  influences  the  other.  The  purpose  of 
the  religious  man  is  to  die  to  self,  as  it  has  been 
said,  in  order  to  live  in  God ;  that  is  to  say,  in 
the  exercise  of  the  freedom  that  belongs  to  him 
even  as  finite  spirit,  to  cease  to  will  finite  ends  and 
purposes.  The  medium  in  which  his  religious  con- 
sciousness embodies  itself  is  thus  acts  of  will  and 
phases  of  feeling.  Scientific  knowledge  belongs  to 
another  sphere,  and  the  ends  which  scientific 
knowledge  seeks  to  realise  are  apart  from  the  ends 
which  are  sought  after  in  Religion.  Between 
Science  and  Religion,  so  understood,  there  is  no 
conflict,  simply  because  the  two  do  not  aim  at  the 
same  thing,  and  accordingly  we  must  bear  in  mind 
that  the  deliverances  of  the  religious  conscious- 
ness, in  so  far  as  they  travel  outside  their  sphere 
of  immediacy,  must  always  be  symbolical,  and  can 
never  in  themselves  and  of  themselves  be  guides  to 
scientific  conceptions. 

By  the  reflective  phase  of  that  initial  activity 
of  mind,  which  only  in  abstraction  is  separated 
into  the  different  forms  which  I  have  mentioned, 
I  mean  the  power  which  the  human  mind  has  to 
become  in  contemplation  conscious  of  its  own 
limits,  and  in  this  consciousness  to  transcend  them. 
Now  that  consciousness  is  not  immediate,  as  is 


206  FINITE  MIND  [LMT.  H. 

the  case  with  Art  and  with  Religion.  It  is  only 
in  reflection  that  the  human  mind  can  transcend 
the  limits  of  its  finitude,  and  that  reflection  takes 
place  in  the  form  of  inference.  Not  only  does  it 
take  place  in  the  form  of  inference,  but  the  infer- 
ence is  the  inference  of  finite  mind  conscious  of 
itself  as  finite.  Nevertheless  reflection  does  often 
assist  the  finite  individual  to  bear  with  and  even 
rise  above  the  limitations  of  his  finitude.  I  have 
never  wholly  agreed  with  Shakespeare  that  a  philo- 
sopher could  be  no  better  than  anybody  else  at 
bearing  toothache— 

"  There  was  never  yet  philosopher 
That  could  endure  the  toothache  patiently, 
However  they  have  writ  the  style  of  gods, 
And  made  a  push  at  chance  and  sufferance." 

He  ought  to  be  better  able  to  bear  it,  if  he  is  not. 
But  the  philosopher,  even  in  his  philosophising, 
certainly  does  reflect  on  the  footing  of  being  a  finite 
person,  and  his  medium  never  can  be  more  in  itself 
than  the  universals  of  reflection  which  reflection 
detaches  from  their  setting  in  reality,  in  just  the 
same  fashion  as  does  reflection  in  geometry  detach 
the  universal  from  what  is  in  its  nature  individual. 
The  method  of  philosophy  is  therefore  abstract,  and 
although  thought,  which  is  the  instrument  of  philo- 
sophy, can  lift  the  human  mind  to  the  contemplation 
of  itself  as  more  than  finite,  it  does  not  give  that 
direct,  rich,  concrete  sense  of  immediate  contact 
which  you  have  in  the  case  of  Art  and  in  the  case  of 


207 

Religion.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  while  Philosophy 
can  aid  Art  and  Religion,  and  is,  as  I  have  said  be- 
fore, the  only  proper  guardian  of  the  truth  in  these 
matters,  it  cannot,  like  these,  give  immediate  presen- 
tation.   What  it  does,  is  to  show  us  that  in  all  of  what 
is  said  to  be  immediately  present  to  the  mind  there 
is  implicit,  as  the  very  condition  of  its  possibility, 
knowledge   of  a  higher  kind,  which   in  ultimate 
analysis  becomes  disclosed  as  creative  knowledge  in 
absolute  mind.     As  I  have  already  shown  to  you, 
it  is  the  finiteness  of  our  human  ends  which  makes 
us  abstract  from  the  presence  of  this  deepest  aspect 
of  reality.     We  do  not  get  rid  of  our  finite  ends  in 
our  philosophising,  but  Art  and  Religion  show  us, 
even  in  our  human  lives,  those  deeper  aspects  of 
reality,  which  are  in  their  nature  ultimate,  as  form- 
ing the  very  basis  of  our  finite  existence,  and  they 
show  us  that  directly.     It  is  only  in  the  distinctions 
made  by  finite  spirit,  in  its  freedom  to  follow  the 
limited  purposes  which  are  of  its  essence  as  human, 
that  the  object  world  of  finite  mind  becomes  im- 
mediate, and  its  really  mediate  and  derivative  char- 
acter is  left  out  of  sight  simply  because  it  is  veiled 
by  the  abstractions   of  understanding.     In   other 
words,  in  so  far  as  we  are  finite,  and  are  therefore 
dominated  by  ends  and  purposes  which  are  not  the 
ends  and  purposes  of  absolute  mind,  we  drop  out 
of  sight  what  it  is  that  has  made  the  world  as  it 
seems  to  us  wear  the  aspect  which  it  does.     It  is 
thus  that  there  is  hidden  from  us  the  reality  which 
is  disclosed  in  the   highest  forms  of  Art  and  of 


208  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  n. 

Religion,  and  which  is  disclosed  in  the  abstract 
reasoning  of  Philosophy.  And  this  reality  we  are 
apt,  when  we  give  ourselves  up  to  the  domination 
of  the  purposes  which  make  us  human  beings,  to 
leave  out  of  account  and  at  times  almost  passion- 
ately to  protest  against  as  unreal. 

There  are  striking  illustrations  of  this  in  litera- 
ture, of  the  most  varied  kinds.  One  there  is,  re- 
markable in  its  combination  of  simplicity  with 
subtlety,  in  a  well-known  poem,  Fitzgerald's  "  Omar 
Khayyam."  Omar  Khayyam,  the  Persian  poet,  is 
not,  like  the  men  of  a  still  more  remote  Eastern 
land,  overwhelmed  by  the  consciousness  of  the  in- 
finite. He  is  aware  that  there  is  an  ideal  to  pursue, 
but,  strong  in  the  sense  of  the  direct  presence  of 
finite  purpose,  he  holds  it  futile  to  make  the  effort 
to  pursue  an  ideal — 

"  For  f  /* '  and  '  Is-not '  though  with  Rule  and  Line 
And  Up-and-doivn  without  I  could  define, 
I  yet  in  all  I  only  cared  to  know, 
Was  never  deep  in  anything  but — wine."* 

He  speaks,  however,  as  no  common  cynic  in  that 
somewhat  sceptical  utterance.  He  is  dissatisfied 
with  the  endless  progress  of  the  world  of  finite  ends, 
with  the  Beyond  reached  only  to  disclose  yet  an- 
other Beyond.  But  he  will  lay  hold  of  what  seems 
to  be  here  and  now,  and  try  to  put  from  him  the 
consciousness  of  its  unreality,  regardless  of  whether 
or  not  he  is  consistent  with  himself  in  the  effort 

*  Fitzgerald's  "Omar  Khayyam"  (1st  ed.). 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  DEATH         209 

he  is  making.     In  a  verse  just  before,  he  has  ex- 
claimed : 

"  How  long,  how  long,  in  infinite  Pursuit 
Of  This  and  That  endeavour  and  dispute  ? 
Better  be  merry  with  the  fruitful  grape 
Than  sadden  after  none,  or  bitter,  Fruit."  * 

The  same  thought  is  expressed  by  Browning,  in 
language  less  cynical,  but  putting  the  same  point : 

"  Better  ends  may  be  in  prospect, 
Deeper  blisses  (if  you  choose  it), 
But  this  life's  end  and  this  love-bliss 
Have  been  lost  here." 

None  the  less  the  history  of  humanity,  and 
above  all,  the  history  of  what  has  been  recognised 
by  humanity  as  highest  and  most  real,  proves  be- 
yond question  that  in  a  different  attitude  multitudes 
in  all  ages  have  found  the  apparent  dilemma  to 
be  no  dilemma.  It  is  the  business  of  philosophy 
to  tell  us  how  and  why  this  has  been  so. 

The  problem  which  confronts  philosophy  is  why 
even  the  best  in  the  world  of  the  finite  should  be 
transitory,  should  have  an  end  as  it  has  had  a  be- 
ginning, and  the  topic  on  which  this  most  directly 
arises  is  the  topic  of  death.  '  I  have  already  in 
part  considered  the  nature  of  death  in  the  earlier 
lectures.  I  pointed  out  to  you  that  the  finite  and 
particular  self  is  what  it  is  to  itself  by  contrast  with 
nature.  It  recognises  itself  as  confronted  by  nature, 
as  limited  by  nature,  and  therein  lies  its  finiteness. 
I  examined  the  question  of  why  that  was  so,  and 

*  Ibid. 

0 


210  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  n. 

how  it  comes  that  self-consciousness  can  look 
upon  itself  as  arising  in  time  out  of  the  world  by 
which  it  finds  itself  confronted,  and  I  also  pointed 
out  to  you  that  in  the  knowledge  which  embraces 
that  world  in  experience  we  have  different  stages 
or  degrees  of  reality  in  that  experience.  We  start, 
for  example,  with  what  is  most  alien  and  impene- 
trable to  mind,  the  relation  of  things  as  external 
to  one  another  in  space,  and  again  with  what  is 
nearly,  though  not  quite,  as  alien  and  impenetrable, 
the  relation  of  things  as  succeeding  one  another  in 
time.  In  that  succession  you  have  an  endlessness 
which  is  mindless  and  wearisome.  But  you  get 
to  other  conceptions  in  nature  which  transcend 
what  can  be  expressed  in  terms  of  space  and 
time  relations,  and  there  you  find  you  have  risen 
above  mere  endless  succession  as  well  as  above 
mere  externality  of  parts  in  space.  In  life,  in  the 
organism,  you  are  conscious  of  the  presence  of  the 
whole  as  controlling  the  parts,  and  yet  as  having  in 
space  and  time  no  existence  separate  from  the  parts. 
The  whole  is  here  in  the  parts,  and  the  parts  are 
what  they  are  only  in  so  far  as  they  belong  to  the 
whole.  In  other  words,  the  externality  of  space 
and  time  is  in  large  measure,  though  not  altogether, 
transcended,  and  you  have  passed  in  some  degree 
from  the  endless  exclusiveness  of  things  as  outside 
each  other  in  these  two  relations. 

But  there  is  a  further  stage  at  which  the  mind 
arrives,  and  that  is  where  it  takes  in  that  the  object 
world  is  what  it  is  only  for  the  mind  which  per- 


THE  SOUL  211 

ceives  it.  In  other  words,  you  there  see  that  the 
very  externalities  of  space  and  time,  the  relation- 
ships of  being  outside  each  other  and  of  being  suc- 
cessive to  each  other,  are  relations  which  fall  within 
the  mind  itself,  and  are  what  they  are  only  for  mind 
that  perceives.  These  distinctions  turn  out  to  fall 
within  self-consciousness,  and  so  you  find  yourself 
getting  a  step  further  towards  recognising  mind  as 
what  is  ultimately  real  through  the  various  stages 
which  become  manifest  in  nature.  Above  and 
beyond  the  notion  of  life  in  the  physical  organism 
there  confronts  you  the  fact  of  the  organism  as 
sentient,  as  even  intelligent,  as  displaying  those 
characteristics  which  can  only  be  displayed  by  a 
body  which  gets  its  significance  from  a  soul,  and 
displays  its  higher  aspects  in  the  form  of  a  soul. 
And  so  it  comes  that  in  the  human  being,  the  being 
that  presents  the  aspect  of  soul  as  well  as  that  of 
body,  you  have  got  away  from  mere  endless  succes- 
sion in  time ;  you  have  got  above  even  the  notion 
of  the  whole  which  is  in  the  parts  and  controls 
them,  notwithstanding  that  the  organism  in  one 
aspect  belongs  to  externality,  and  you  have  got 
nearer  to  the  notion  of  mind  as  that  which 
embraces  reality  within  itself.  But  just  as  you 
have  got  away  from  mere  succession  and  endless- 
ness, just  as  that  aspect  is  seen  to  be  not  the  only 
aspect  but  one  which  dominates  only  in  knowledge 
of  a  limited  kind,  so  you  get  to  a  further  but  still 
imperfect  presentation  of  the  self ;  this  you  have  in 
the  picture  which  you  frame  to  yourself  of  the 


212  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  rt. 

individual  which  has  soul  and  body.  Here  you  are 
still  conscious  of  defects  in  your  presentation.  In 
body  and  soul  you  have  the  manifestation  of  mind, 
but  it  is  mind  still  thought  of  as  for  the  self 
which  perceives,  and  as  under  the  domination  of 
relations  of  space  and  time  which  have  only  been 
partially  transcended.  Taken  in  their  abstract 
presentation,  soul  and  body  are  in  time,  and  as  in 
time,  although  they  have  transcended  the  mere 
endlessness  of  succession,  they  transcend  it  only 
in  so  far  as  they  have  a  limit  or  an  end.  I  pointed 
out  to  you  how  in  the  mathematical  series  the 
notion  of  the  limit,  that  is  of  a  notional  end  to 
the  apparently  endless  succession,  was  really  the 
key  to  the  conception  of  a  whole  which  gives  the 
series  its  truth  and  its  existence.  Well,  so  it  is  in 
the  nature  of  the  organism.  There  is  here  some- 
thing that  corresponds  to  the  limit,  which  raises 
the  process  above  mere  unending  succession,  and 
that  is  the  course  of  development  of  the  organism 
in  which  it  attains  the  fulness  of  its  reality.  In  so 
far  as  that  follows  a  course  of  growth  and  then 
decay,  in  so  far  as  there  is  a  development  to  be 
accomplished  which  is  the  key  to  the  very  meaning 
of  the  organism,  there  is  implied  a  beginning  and 
there  is  equally  implied  an  end.  Life  is  impossible 
except  on  the  basis  of  development,  and  develop- 
ment must  be  of  what  is  born,  comes  into  existence, 
grows,  and  finally  declines  to  a  natural  end ;  because 
the  complete  conception  of  life  is  only  attained 
when  we  recognise  that  the  individual  is  a  member 


LIFE  AND  DEATH  213 

of  the  species,  and  that  it  is  the  law  and  life  of  the 
species  which  give  law  and  life  to  the  individual. 
The  species  cannot  continue,  cannot  maintain  its 
vitality,  unless  the  individuals  which  have  become 
old  and  useless  to  it  pass  away,  and  consequently 
you  see  how  in  nature  the  individual  being  passes 
away  for  the  benefit  of  the  species.  That  is  part  of 
the  great  conception  of  evolution,  and  that  is  how 
the  life  of  the  world,  taken  as  a  whole,  goes  on. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  notion  of  death  is  not  merely 
implied  in  the  meaning  of  the  life  of  the  individual, 
but  is  a  notion  which  is  so  completely  correlative 
to  those  of  birth  and  of  life  that  without  it  these 
two  would  not  be  intelligible. 

Now  let  us,  in  the  light  of  this  truth  that  death 
is  an  event  which  is  required  for  the  completion  of 
the  life  of  the  individual  taken  as  a  mere  living 
organism,  and  is  necessary  for  the  life  of  the 
species,  let  us,  I  say,  in  the  light  of  this  reflection, 
examine  the  contrast  between  life  and  death. 
Death  is  a  natural  event,  and  in  it  you  have,  in 
point  of  fact,  the  reconciliation  of  the  conflict  of 
interest  between  the  particular  organism  and  the 
species.  If  the  particular  organism  were  as  endur- 
ing as  the  type  the  type  would  suffer,  and  it  is  for 
the  benefit  of  the  species  that  the  particular 
organism,  having  done  its  work,  should  die  and 
pass  away.  When  you  turn  from  the  mere  biologi- 
cal point  of  view  at  which  that  is  true  to  the  point 
of  view  of  psychology,  where  you  have  the  soul  as 
individual,  as  sentient,  as  reflective,  as  capable  of 


214  FINITE   MIND  [Lser.  n. 

volition,  you  have  other  phenomena  not  alto- 
gether dissimilar  from  those  upon  which  I  have 
been  touching.  In  the  soul  you  have  in  childhood, 
as  I  pointed  out  once  before,  the  characteristic 
of  great  detachment  on  the  part  of  the  mind. 
Its  bodily  surroundings,  the  world  that  confronts 
it,  are  something  strange  and  foreign  which  it 
has  to  dominate  and  mould  to  its  purposes,  and 
in  childhood  you  have  the  greatest  sense  of  the 
freedom  of  soul  life.  Habits  have  not  yet  been 
formed.  As  you  go  on  in  life,  and  more  and  more 
make  your  body  the  servant  of  your  will,  and  more 
completely  dominate  your  surroundings,  the  real 
power  of  the  soul  increases,  and  by  degrees,  as  old 
age  approaches,  the  soul  succeeds  in  so  moulding 
its  surroundings  and  its  body  to  itself  that  it 
establishes  courses  of  conduct  and  habits  which  lead 
to  still  greater  facility  in  the  realisation  of  its  own 
activity.  But  that  activity  is  gradually  deadening 
into  habit,  and  the  deadening  into  habit  which  is 
characteristic  of  old  age  points  to  an  end  to  that 
kind  of  external  life  of  the  soul,  just  as  essentially 
involved  in  the  completion  of  the  existence  of  the 
soul  as  death  is  in  that  of  the  physical  organism. 
Well,  whether  we  take  it  from  the  point  of  view 
of  animal  life  or  of  physical  life,  the  death  of  the 
particular  living  creature  appears  as  natural  and 
necessary,  and  is  the  more  seen  to  be  so  the  larger 
and  more  complete  the  outlook  and  comprehension 
of  the  process  which  takes  place.  It  is  only  when 
we  fall  into  the  abstractions  of  the  understanding, 


NATURE  AND  DEATH  215 

which  take  what  is  presented  in  their  own  distinc- 
tions as  final,  and  as  representing  complete  truth 
and  complete  reality,  that  we  rebel  against  this 
view.  If  we  are  dealing  simply  with  the  side  of 
things  in  which  they  belong  to  nature,  we  do  not 
rebel  against  the  notion  of  death  or  take  it  as 
unnatural.  I  shall  show  you  presently  that  the 
rebellion  arises  out  of  this,  that  people  uncon- 
sciously assume  that  the  higher  aspects  of  the  life 
of  the  spirit  must  be  taken  as  subordinated  to  the 
law  of  the  physical.  But  in  the  meantime  I  am 
dealing  only  with  what  I  may  call  the  physical  side 
of  the  soul  itself,  the  side  which  belongs  to  nature  ; 
and  the  point  is  that,  if  you  keep  to  simple  animal 
life,  you  do  not  find  any  contradiction  in  the  notion 
of  death,  or  the  rebellion  against  it  which  you  find 
at  a  higher  stage,  where  you  are  really  contem- 
plating something  higher  than  animal  life. 

Dealing  first  with  mere  animal  life,  I  am  going 
to  quote  to  you  the  description,  given  by  an 
American  writer  who  is  a  keen  observer  of  animal 
life,  of  the  death  of  animals.  This  is  what  he 
says,  after  a  great  deal  of  study  of  the  facts : — * 

"  How  do  the  animals  die  ! — quietly,  peacefully, 
nine-tenths  of  them.  .  .  .  The  vast  majority  steal 
away  into  the  solitudes  they  love,  and  lay  them 
down  unseen  where  the  leaves  shall  presently  cover 
them  from  the  sight  of  friends  and  enemies  alike. 

We  rarely  discover  them  at  such  times,  for  the 

*  The  School  of  the  Woods,  William  J.  Long.  Chapter  on 
"  How  the  Animals  die ! "  p.  352. 


216  FINITE  MIND  [L*CT.  „. 

instinct  of  the  animal  is  to  go  away  as  far  as 
possible  into  the  deepest  coverts.  We  see  only 
the  exceptional  cases,  the  quail  in  the  hawk's  grip, 
the  squirrel  limp  and  quiet  under  the  paw  of  the 
cat  or  weasel ;  but  the  unnumbered  multitudes  that 
choose  their  own  place  and  close  their  eyes  for  the 
last  time,  as  peacefully  as  ever  they  lay  down  to 
sleep,  are  hidden  from  our  sight. 

"There  is  a  curious  animal  trait  which  may 
account  for  this,  and  also  explain  why  we  have 
such  curious,  foolish,  conceptions  of  animal  death 
as  a  tragic  and  violent  thing.  All  animals  and 
birds  have  a  strong  distrust  and  antipathy  for  any 
queerness  or  irregularity  among  their  own  kind. 
Except  in  rare  cases,  no  animals  or  birds  will 
tolerate  any  cripple  or  deformed  or  sickly  member 
among  them.  They  set  upon  him  fiercely,  and 
drive  him  away.  So  when  an  animal,  grown  old 
and  feeble,  feels  the  queerness  of  some  new  thing 
stealing  upon  him,  he  slips  away,  in  obedience  to  a 
law  of  protection  that  he  has  noted  all  his  life,  and, 
knowing  no  such  thing  as  death,  thinks  he  is  but 
escaping  discomfort  when  he  lies  down  in  hiding 
for  the  last  time."  .  .  .  "In  short,*  unless  the 
animals  are  to  live  always,  and  become  a  nuisance 
or  a  danger  by  their  increase,  Nature  is  kind,  even 
in  her  sterner  moods,  in  taking  care  that  death 
comes  to  all  her  creatures  without  pain  or  terror. 
And  what  is  true  of  the  animals  was  true  of  man, 

*  The  School  of  the  Woods,  William  J.  Long.     Chapter  oq 
"  HOW  the  Animals  die  ! "  p.  360, 


HOW  THE  ANIMALS  DIE  217 

till  he  sought  out  many  inventions  to  make  sickness 
intolerable  and  death  an  enemy.  .  .  .  The  vast 
majority  of  animals  go  away  quietly  when  their 
time  comes ;  and  their  death  is  not  recorded, 
because  man  has  eyes  only  for  exceptions.  He 
denies  a  miracle,  but  overlooks  the  sunsets.  Some- 
thing calls  the  creature  away  from  his  daily  round  ; 
age  or  natural  disease  touches  him  gently  in  a  way 
he  has  not  felt  before.  He  steals  away,  obeying 
the  old  warning  instinct  of  his  kind,  and  picks  out 
a  spot  where  they  shall  not  find  him  till  he  is  well 
again.  The  brook  sings  on  its  way  to  the  sea  ;  the 
waters  lap  and  tinkle  on  the  pebbles  as  the  breeze 
rocks  them ;  the  wind  is  crooning  in  the  pines— 
the  old  sweet  lullaby  that  he  heard  when  his  ears 
first  opened  to  the  harmony  of  the  world.  The 
shadows  lengthen ;  the  twilight  deepens ;  his  eyes 
grow  drowsy ;  he  falls  asleep.  And  his  last  con- 
scious thought,  since  he  knows  no  death,  is  that 
he  will  waken  in  the  morning  when  the  light  calls 
him." 

Goethe  died  with  the  words  "  More  light "  upon 
his  lips,  expressive,  apparently,  of  just  such  con- 
sciousness of  a  simple  natural  life  and  of  something 
that  was  coming  simply  and  naturally. 

Well,  I  have  described  how  death  appears 
natural  when  taken  from  the  point  of  view  of  mere 
life,  as  distinguished  from  that  of  self-consciousness, 
and  I  will  now  take,  as  an  illustration  of  a  yet 
higher  attitude  in  which  death  is  contemplated  as 
natural,  the  diary  of  a  man  of  science  who  passed 


218  FINITE  MIND  [Lacr.  n. 

from  the  world  only  some  three  years  ago,  Professor 
Pettenkofer  of  Munich.  He  was  one  of  the 
greatest  living  authorities  of  the  time  on  Public 
Health,  and,  among  other  things,  it  had  always 
been  in  his  mind  that  the  question  of  how  the 
infection  of  cholera  was  conveyed  was  one  which 
could  be  answered  only  by  experiment,  experi- 
ment which  might  prove  fatal,  but  which  must  be 
performed  before  the  truth  could  be  known.  His 
view  was  that  the  mere  presence  of  the  cholera 
germ  in  drinking-water  was  not  sufficient  to  account 
for  infection,  unless  there  were  other  conditions 
also  present.  Accordingly,  finding  himself  in 
infirm  health,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  test  his 
theory  by  experimenting  upon  himself.  He  had 
resolved  that  he  would  swallow  a  cultivation  of 
the  cholera  bacillus  in  water,  and  this  is  the 
description,  afterwards  found  in  his  diary,  of 
what  happened : — 

"  On  the  7th  of  October  1892,  in  the  presence  of 
witnesses,  I  took  the  cholera  drink,  which  tasted 
like  the  purest  water.  Some  of  my  friends  were 
concerned  for  me,  and  asked  that  if  I  were  now 
determined  that  the  experiment  should  be  made, 
they  might  be  allowed  to  sacrifice  themselves  in 
place  of  their  old  teacher ;  but  I  wished  to  act  in 
accordance  with  the  old  maxim,  Fiat  experimentum 
in  corpore  mil !  I  have  the  right  to  consider  myself 
a  corpus  vile.  I  am  seventy-four  years  old,  I  have 
suffered  for  years  from  glycosuria,  have  not  a  single 
tooth  left,  do  not  even  use  my  artificial  teeth  in 


THE  STRONG  MAN  AND  DEATH     219 

eating,  but  only  when  I  have  to  speak  long  and 
clearly ;  and  I  feel  also  other  burdens  of  old  age. 
Even  if  I  were  mistaken,  and  the  experiment 
endangered  my  life,  I  should  look  death  calmly 
in  the  face,  for  it  would  be  no  thoughtless  and 
cowardly  suicide.  I  should  die  in  the  service  of 
science,  as  a  soldier  on  the  field  of  battle.  Health 
and  life,  as  I  have  often  said,  are  very  high  earthly 
gifts,  but  not  the  highest  for  man.  The  man  who 
wills  to  stand  higher  than  an  animal  must  be  ready 
to  sacrifice  even  life  and  health  for  a  higher  ideal 
good." 

Well,  he  made  the  experiment  successfully,  and, 
by  surviving  it  without  serious  damage,  proved  that 
so  far  he  was  right.  The  story  remains  simply 
illustrative  of  this,  that,  with  a  sufficiently  firm 
conception  that  death  is  a  perfectly  natural  occur- 
rence when  a  certain  condition  of  the  organism  has 
been  reached  in  natural  course,  a  man  of  strong 
mind  can  subordinate  the  conception  of  death  so 
completely  as  to  have  no  fear  of  it  of  any  sort  or 
kind.  This  is  possible  in  so  far  as  we  look  at  it  as 
an  event  in  nature,  as  the  example  of  Professor 
Pettenkofer  shows.  But  we  do  not  take  nature 
to  be  the  ultimate  form  of  reality,  or  merely  submit 
ourselves  to  death  as  a  final  end  to  be  attained. 

Bacon  says  of  death,  that 

"  Revenge  triumphs  over  it ;  Love  slights  it ; 
Honour  aspireth  to  it ;  Grief  flieth  to  it ; " 

and  we  have  the  same  feeling  expressed  in  other 


220  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  H. 

and  better  known  words :  "  Oh  death,  where  is 
thy  sting  ?  Oh  grave,  where  is  thy  victory  ? " 

The  acceptance  of  death  seems  to  be  there 
regarded  as  a  step  towards  the  attainment  of  some- 
thing higher,  not  represented  as  something  to  come 
later  in  time,  but  as  that  which  is  in  itself  higher, 
and  in  comparison  with  which  the  reality  of  death 
disappears.  This  acceptance  of  death  seems  now 
to  mean  an  attitude  in  which  death  itself  becomes 
unimportant  and  unreal.  Observe  the  contrast. 
Mere  endless  succession  of  time,  with  its  blank- 
ness,  is  at  the  one  extreme ;  at  the  other  extreme 
is  the  life  which  is,  in  the  only  true  sense,  called 
eternal  as  being  above  time,  the  life  which,  when 
reached,  is  the  highest  form  of  reality.  Between 
these  there  is  a  gap  which  has  to  be  bridged 
over,  a  gap  bridged  over  only  in  the  expression  of 
itself  by  mind,  an  expression  which  may  assume 
the  form  of  acceptance  of  physical  change,  or  of 
the  fulfilment  of  physical  law,  even  if  it  assumes 
the  form  of  the  death  of  the  organism.  And  yet 
this  is  only  tolerable  upon  the  footing  that  death 
itself  and  the  intermediate  stages  to  which  it 
belongs  are  themselves  unreal,  compared  with  this 
highest  form  of  reality. 

Now  let  us  pause  and  inquire  a  little  what  we 
mean  by  this.  We  do  not  mean  merely  to  prefer 
to  life  as  it  is  now  a  life  which  is  subsequent  in 
time.  The  notion  of  mere  endless  succession  in 
time  is  a  notion  which  altogether  belongs  to  the 
finite.  What  is  in  the  mind  is  rather  the  refusal 


THE  DILEMMA  221 

to  regard  the  present  life  in  time  as  more  than 
relatively  real.  The  mind  looks  for  the  truth 
about  those  things  as  to  be  got,  not  so  much  by 
setting  up  something  beyond,  as  by  breaking  down 
the  reality  of  what  is  here  and  now,  so  as  to  trans- 
form what  is  appearance  here  and  now  into  the 
presentation  of  another  and  a  higher  aspect.  Taken 
abstractly,  we  put  life  and  death  in  sharp  anti- 
thesis ;  but,  as  I  have  shown  you,  if  we  examine 
the  matter  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  mere 
natural  life  of  the  organism,  the  antithesis  seems 
not  to  be  real,  any  more  than  in  other  cases  where 
one  has  traced  the  origin  of  an  antinomy  to  the 
action  of  the  understanding  in  putting  things  in 
sharp  abstraction.  The  formula  of  the  understand- 
ing is  that  something  is  either  this  or  something  else, 
and  yet  we  are  constantly  finding  in  reflection  that 
the  " either,  or"  and  the  dilemma  based  on  it,  are 
not  exhaustive,  and  that  there  is  a  higher  concep- 
tion through  which  the  sharp  antithesis  disappears. 

The  contrast,  after  all,  between  life  and  death 
is  a  contrast  which  is  made  within  self-conscious- 
ness. Self-consciousness  is  not  itself  an  event  in 
time.  It  is  that  within  which  the  world  of  events 
in  time  falls.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  contrast 
between  life  and  death  does  not  exist.  It  does 
exist,  but  it  presents  its  appearance  of  finality  only 
for  a  comprehension  which  is  not  complete,  and 
which  therefore  corresponds  only  to  a  degree  in 
reality. 

Now  that  is  no  point  of  view  which  is  peculiar 


222  FINITE  MIND  [LKT.  n. 

to  philosophy.  With  the  instinct  of  a  man  of 
genius,  Goethe  rejected  the  old  Roman  maxim, 
Memento  mori,  "Remember  that  thou  art  dying," 
for  the  larger  maxim,  Memento  vivere,  "  Remember 
that  thou  art  living."  The  meaning  of  Goethe's 
Gedenke  zu  Leben,  I  take  to  be  this  : —  "  Think  of 
life  as  something  more  than  a  mere  present  with  a 
past  behind  it  and  a  future  in  front  of  it.  Think  of 
thy  present  as  a  present  which,  fully  understood, 
taken  at  its  highest  significance,  pertains  to  the 
eternal,  to  the  infinite  self  that  makes  within  itself 
the  distinctions  out  of  which  has  arisen  the  con- 
trast between  past  and  present  and  future.  Think 
of  the  instant,  think  of  the  moment  in  which 
thou  livest,  think  of  the  deed  which  thou  doest, 
think  of  the  merest  daily  act,  all  as  having  eternal 
and  infinite  significance.  Think  of  spirit  as  that 
which  gives  reality  to  what  is,  was,  and  shall  be,  as 
that  within  which  what  is,  was,  and  shall  be,  falls." 
In  other  words,  in  his  "instant  made  eternity," 
Goethe  lays  down  the  great  truth,  that,  if  you  would 
find  the  highest  aspects  of  reality  you  must  seek 
them,  not  in  some  world  beyond,  but  in  the  world 
as  it  is  here  and  now,  only  fully  comprehended 
and  taken  in  its  complete  relation  to  mind.  This 
does  not  mean  that  death  has  no  place,  still  less 
that  eternal  life  signifies  endless  duration  and  con- 
tinuance in  infinitum  of  the  present  life  of  the 
physical  organism.  Such  a  view  would  be  repug- 
nant, not  only  to  the  conception  which  Goethe  puts 
before  us,  but  to  the  best  thought  of  the  ages. 


THE  FALSE  INFINITE  223 

Jesus,  when  rebuking  the  Sadducees,  tells  them, 
as  is  recorded  in  the  22nd  chapter  of  Matthew's 
Gospel,  that  they  err,  not  knowing  the  power  of 
God — for  in  the  true  resurrection  they  neither 
marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage,  but  are  as  the 
angels  of  God  in  heaven.  God,  he  says,  is  not  the 
God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living.  Again,  in  John 
17th,  he  defines  eternal  life:  "This  is  life  eternal, 
that  they  might  know  thee  the  only  true  God,  and 
Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast  sent." 

The  religious  man,  as  Professor  Edward  Caird 
has  pointed  out  in  his  Gifford  Lectures,*  believes  in 
a  future  life  for  himself  and  mankind,  because  he 
believes  in  God,  and  does  not  believe  in  God 
because  he  believes  in  a  future  life  or  another 
world.  In  a  remarkable  passage  t  in  his  Lectures 
he  goes  on  to  say  : — 

"  The  belief  in  immortality  may  easily  become 
an  unhealthy  occupation  with  a  future  salvation, 
which  prevents  us  from  seeking  for  salvation  for 
mankind  here,  unless  it  be  that  natural  spring  of 
confidence  in  its  own  supreme  reality,  that  unbelief 
in  death,  which  seems  to  be  the  necessary  character- 
istic or  concomitant  of  true  spiritual  life.  If  it  be 
a  consequence  of  the  intellectual  conditions  under 
which  we  live  in  the  present  day,  that  the  empirical 
evidences  of  a  future  life  that  seemed  most  sure 
and  certain  to  our  fathers  have  for  some  of  us  lost 

*  Prof.    Edward  Caird,    The   Evolution   of  Religion,   vol.    ii. 
p.  242  (3rd  ed.). 
t  Ibid.,  p.  243. 


224  FINITE  MIND  [Lwr.  n. 

their  controlling  power,  this,  in  a  religious  point 
of  view,  may  not  be  altogether  a  loss.  It  is  possible 
even  that  the  spiritual  may  gain  all  that  the  super- 
natural has  lost " ;  an  observation  which,  I  think, 
is  as  remarkable  as  it  is  true. 

How  certain  it  is,  that  the  repugnance  which 
is  awakened  in  our  minds  by  such  books  as 
Letters  from  Heaven  and  The  Gates  Ajar  is  due  to 
this  cause — the  feeling  that  the  picture  of  a  con- 
tinuance in  time  of  a  life  in  all  material  respects 
resembling  our  own,  and  only  quantitatively  different 
from  it,  affords  us  no  satisfaction.  Those  of  you 
who  recall  Swift's  biting  description  of  the  "  Struld- 
brugs,"  of  the  people  whose  lives  continue  without 
cessation,  and  the  consequent  misery  which  he 
depicts  in  Gulliver's  Travels,  will  remember  what 
depths  of  unhappiness  the  contemplation  of  such  a 
state  of  things  can  disclose.  The  picture  of  a 
physical  life  which  does  not  obey  the  ordinary 
course  of  nature,  the  law  which  bids  life  to  have  a 
beginning,  and  bids  it  equally  naturally  to  have  an 
end,  that  is  not  any  key  to  what  we  desire  when 
we  pray  for  eternal  life.  Eternal  life  gains  nothing, 
but  loses  much,  when  it  is  represented  as  the  per- 
sistence of  a  physical  organism.  It  is  only  the 
abstract  character  of  understanding  which  has  led 
people  so  to  symbolise  it. 

Well,  in  this  lecture  I  have  endeavoured  to 
prepare  the  way  for  the  more  complete  considera- 
tion to-morrow  of  what  I  think  we  are  now  in  a 
position  to  enter  upon — the  true  signification  of 


ETERNAL  LIFE  225 

eternal  life  and  the  meaning  of  its  reality.  I  shall 
endeavour  in  what  follows  to  investigate  the  real 
nature  of  that  life  and  its  lesson.  I  am  aware  that 
the  problem  is  one  which  man  never  will  leave 
where  it  lies.  The  longing  for  "the  touch  of  a 
vanished  hand,  and  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is 
still,"  will  always  forbid  us  to  be  satisfied  with  any 
doctrine  that  cannot  redeem  itself  from  the  reproach 
of  bidding  us  be  content  with  an  abstraction.  We 
cannot  accept  stones  in  place  of  bread.  We  have 
therefore  to  see  whether  a  conception  of  eternal 
life  be  possible  which  will  free  it  from  the 
reproach  of  offering  stones  in  place  of  bread. 


LECTURE  III 

I  DEVOTED  my  time  yesterday  to  the  consideration 
of  death  looked  at  as  an  event  in  time,  and  I 
endeavoured  to  show  you  that  the  conception  of  an 
organism,  preserving  its  life  and  pursuing  its  course 
of  development  from  birth  to  death  through  the 
metabolism  of  its  material,  was  less  abstract  and 
therefore  higher  than  the  conception  of  a  mere 
endless  succession  in  time.  The  presentation  of 
such  an  organism,  implying  as  it  does  transcend- 
ence of  complete  mutual  exclusion  of  parts,  belongs 
to  a  higher  stage  in  nature,  and  the  knowledge  of 
it  would  seem  to  be  a  further  step  towards  the 
self-comprehension  of  mind  as  what  alone  proves 
in  ultimate  analysis  to  be  the  real.  In  fact  the 
pathway  to  reality  would  seem  to  be  a  pathway 
through  stages  of  knowledge,  each  one  higher 
than  that  which  preceded  it,  to  that  complete  self- 
comprehension  by  mind  of  itself  which  exhibits 
mind  as  containing  all  reality  within  itself.  One  f 
of  these  stages  of  knowledge  is  the  recognition  of 
life  as  an  intermediate  stage  in  the  comprehension 
of  itself  by  mind.  Yet  in  life  we  are  still  in  the 
sphere  of  nature.  And  a  life  that  did  not  in  death 


226 


THE  MEANING  OF  ETEKNAL  LIFE    227 

naturally  fulfil  its  purpose  as  an  individual  member 
of  the  species,  but  on  the  contrary  continued  end- 
lessly, would  be  unnatural  and  miserable ;  as, 
indeed,  Swift  showed  in  the  illustration  I  quoted 
to  you  yesterday  of  the  "  Struldbrugs,"  and  as 
we  all  instinctively  feel  when  we  read  pictorial 
accounts  of  another  world. 

Eternal  life  must  then  mean  something  quite 
different  from  this,  and  to-day  I  propose  to  take  up 
the  problem  of  that  meaning.  My  purpose  is  to 
begin  by  considering  the  question  with  which  I 
closed  the  last  lecture — the  question  why  we  are 
dissatisfied  with  the  mere  assurance  that  the  forms 
of  time  have  no  application  to  self-consciousness, 
as  a  substitute  for  what  people  call  the  living 
personal  sense  of  continuance  beyond  the  grave. 
Now  I  want,  in  considering  this,  to  see  first  what 
light  metaphysics  can  cast  upon  the  problem. 
There  are  two  extremes,  two  forms  in  which  we 
can  think  reality,  each  of  which  is  abstract,  and 
each  of  which  is  divided  from  the  other  by  a  con- 
siderable gulf.  To  begin  with,  the  notion  of  mere 
endless  succession  is  a  barren  notion,  and  one 
which  is  incomplete.  If  I  take  a  particular,  say 
unity,  and  count  it  again  and  again  and  again,  I 
feel,  not  only  that  my  task  is  in  point  of  fact 
without  an  end,  but  that  there  is  no  reason  in  the 
nature  of  what  I  am  doing  why  it  should  come 
to  an  end.  The  future  is  uninteresting  and  in- 
different to  me  because  it  does  not  lift  me  in  any 
sense  beyond  the  present.  That  is  one  extreme. 


228  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  m. 

The  other  extreme  is  such  a  logical  conception 
as  the  abstract  one  of  mind,  as  that  within  which 
all  space  and  time  and  all  distinctions  within  them 
fall.  If  that  is  set  up  merely  in  the  form  in  which 
abstract  thinking  gives  it  to  us,  we  feel  that  it  also 
is  shadowy  and  that  it  is  not  adequate  to  reality. 

Well,  these  are  two  extreme  views ;  they  are  in 
their  different  fashions  abstract,  and  in  order  to  see 
what  they  mean  one  has  got  to  consider  whether 
they  do  not  represent  mere  planes  of  knowledge, 
bearing  in  mind  that,  as  we  saw  before,  knowledge,  < 
even  absolute  knowledge,  only  attains  reality  by  : 
collecting  itself,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  differences  in 
which  it  has  expressed  itself.  You  have  got,  on  the 
one  side,  abstract  succession;  you  have  got,  upon 
the  other  side,  the  fixed  notion  of  a  self  which  is 
timeless  because  time  falls  within  it.  But  the 
concrete  riches  of  human  life  are  between  these 
two.  They  are  like  the  individual  in  which  just 
such  abstractions  attain  reality  for  our  finite  know- 
ledge. No  life  is  sufficiently  pictured  under  the  con- 
ception of  one  antithesis  or  under  that  of  the  other. 
Real  life  contains  within  itself  the  elements  of  the 
two,  and  one  comes  to  see  that  the  difficulty  and 
the  antithesis  have  been  caused  by  taking  extreme 
views  in  a  highly  abstract  form  as  representative 
and  sufficiently  descriptive  of  the  facts  with  which 
we  have  to  deal.  Life  has  the  side  of  succession 
in  time  in  it ;  life  also  has  its  meaning  as  falling 
within  self-consciousness,  and  getting  its  significance  I 
only  through  self-consciousness. 


THE  FORMS  OF  KNOWLEDGE       229 

Between  these  two  different  kinds  of  knowledge 
there  are,  intermediate,  other  forms  of  knowledge ; 
for  example,  our  experience  of  the  organism  in 
which  life  determines  parts  that  are  always 
changing,  and  yet  is  not  anything  separate  from 
these  parts.  The  conception  of  the  whole,  which 
you  have  there,  carries  you  beyond  the  mere 
externality  to  each  other  of  the  units  which  you 
find  in  a  mere  endless  succession  in  time.  Again, 
the  course  of  life  from  birth  to  death,  the  develop- 
ment which  that  life  pursues,  the  purpose  which  it 
realises,  not  only  on  its  own  account  but  for  the 
sake  of  the  species,  and  which  ends  with  its  death 
just  as  naturally  as  it  commenced  with  its  birth — 
these  disclose  that  you  are  dealing  with  life  and 
with  knowledge  at  a  higher  plane,  and  therefore 
with  reality  in  a  higher  degree,  than  what  you  find 
when  you  are  dealing  with  the  mere  succession  of 
events  in  time. 

Now,  bearing  that  in  mind,  let  us  see  what 
light  we  get  on  the  problem  which  confronts  us 
when  we  cannot  reconcile  our  individuality  as  part 
of  nature  with  the  sense  which  we  have  that  in  one 
aspect  our  lives  rise  above  mere  succession  in  time. 
Life,  on  one  side  of  it,  is  succession  in  time.  Life, 
on  another  side  of  it,  finds  its  reality  in  the  self- 
consciousness  for  which  succession  in  time  is. 
Therefore  if  we  take  the  life  of  the  individual 
and  deal  with  it  abstractly  as  a  mere  event  in  time, 
deal  with  it  by  the  method  which  the  geometer 
adopts  when  he  abstracts  from  everything  except 


230  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  in. 


space  relations  in  order  to  get  clear  knowledge,  we 
reach  a  conception  which  is  not  adequate  to  what 
we  are  trying  to  express  by  it.  If  life  is  necessarily 
something  more  than  the  mere  indifferent  succession 
of  unit  to  unit,  it  cannot  be  expressed  merely  as  an 
event.  Life,  with  its  reference,  its  intrinsic  refer- 
ence, to  self-consciousness  as  its  highest  meaning, 
imports  more  than  any  mere  fact  in  that  object 
world  which  is  for  self-consciousness,  and,  conse- 
quently, when  we  endeavour  to  get  the  clear 
knowledge  which  is  essential  for  the  purposes  of 
our  everyday  social  intercourse  by  speaking  of  a 
person  as  if  that  person  could  be  labelled  as  a  mere 
fact  determined  by  space  and  time  relations,  we 
get  a  contradiction  which  presses  itself  upon  us. 
We  quite  see  how  we  come  to  regard  the  person  in 
that  light,  but  we  also  feel  that  that  light  is  quite 
inadequate,  and  therefore  unconsciously  we  pro- 
ceed to  determine  the  life,  which  we  have  thus 
abstractly  conceived,  as  finding  its  completion,  the 
higher  truth  which  we  have  the  sense,  and  rightly, 
that  it  must  have,  in  something  that  lies  beyond. 
Now  that  something  our  imagination,  which  pre- 
sents pictures  that  succeed  each  other  in  time, 
causes  us  to  present  to  ourselves  as  another  period 
into  which  life  enters  in  time  after  its  termination 
as  an  event  here.  But,  when  we  come  to  look  at 
that  pictorial  future,  it  turns  out  to  be  just  as  in- 
adequate as  was  the  first  pictorial  presentation  of 
the  present  from  which  it  started. 

What  we  mean  is  simply  this,  that  in  conceiving 


THE  PICTORIAL  BEYOND  231 

life  simply  in  the  light  of  an  event  in  time,  we  have 
conceived  it  too  abstractly,  and  therefore  inade- 
quately. Our  picture  has  not  been  a  true  picture. 
Our  knowledge  has  been  imperfect,  and  we  have 
endeavoured  to  correct  that  imperfection  by  setting 
up  a  Beyond  which  is  again  imperfect  and  inade- 
quate for  just  the  same  reason  ;  and  therefore,  while 
we  are  forced  to  conceive  of  a  future  life,  that 
conception  of  a  future  life  as  a  mere  succession  in 
time  to  the  present  is  itself  imperfect,  for  just  the 
very  same  reason  that  the  first  was  imperfect.  In 
that  way  an  antinomy  arises. 

Now  what  an  antinomy  is  most  of  you  know. 
Take  a  famous  one.  The  world  has  either  got  a 
first  cause  or  it  has  not  got  a  first  cause.  It  must 
have  a  first  cause,  because  as  you  go  back  and  back 
you  must  come  to  something  which  is  the  cause  of 
all  that  is.  On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  have  a 
first  cause,  because  as  you  go  back  you  find  that 
each  cause  in  its  turn  appears  to  be  just  an  effect, 
and  there  is  no  end  to  the  series  of  causes  present- 
ing themselves  as  in  their  turn  merely  effects. 
Well  that  is  an  antinomy  which  arises  because  we 
have  made  use  of  categories  which  are  not  adequate 
to  their  subject  matter — the  universe  conceived  as  a 
totality  ;  and  so  the  difficulty  about  the  future  life, 
the  dilemma  that  the  individual  must  either  perish 
with  the  events  of  time,  in  which  case  his  nature  is 
not  accounted  for,  or  that  he  must  have  a  future 
life,  in  which  case  that  future  life  is  impossible  to 
reconcile  with  what  we  know  about  this  one,  is  a 


232  FINITE  MIND  [Lwr.  m. 

dilemma  which  arises  out  of  a  similar  inadequacy 
of  the  conceptions  applied.  The  more  you  look  at 
it  and  the  more  you  examine  it,  the  more  you  see 
that  the  pictorial  conception  of  immortality  is  one 
which  is  forced  on  us  because  we  are  bound  to 
determine  the  life  of  the  self  as  meaning  more  than 
a  mere  external  event,  and  it  is  equally  clear  that 
the  more  you  try  to  picture  to  yourself  that  future 
life,  the  more  you  get  into  hopeless  contradictions. 
That  point  is,  I  think,  one  which  is  just  as  capable 
of  being  worked  out  in  philosophy  as  are  the  anti- 
nomies about  which  there  has  been  so  much 
discussion — antinomies  of  which  this  difficulty  is 
no  more  than  a  specimen. 

What  I  have  suggested  to  you  has  not  been 
very  much  touched  on  in  philosophy,  but  it  has 
been  put  by  Hegel  in  a  passage  in  which  he  dis- 
cusses a  kindred  topic,  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
Philosophy  of  Religion*  He  points  out  that  the 
subject  is  certain  of  its  own  infinite,  non-sensuous 
substantiality;  that  the  form  of  its  self-conscious- 
ness consists  in  an  endless  yielding  up  of  its 
particularity,  and  finds  its  infinite  value  only  in 
what  he  calls  the  Love  which  consists  in  infinite 
sorrow  and  arises  out  of  it.  "This,"  he  says, 
"is  a  quality  and  a  life  which  is  beyond  time 
and  what  is  transitory,  and  since  it  is  also  in 
antithesis  to  its  finite  and  conditioned  mode  of 
existence  in  the  present,  its  necessity  of  eternal 
self-realisation  determines  itself  as  future.  The 

*  Hegel,  Werke,  xii.  p.  313. 


THE  ANTINOMY  233 

infinite  demand  to  see  God,  that  is,  for  the  mind  to 
become  conscious  of  His  truth  in  this  temporal 
present,  is  not  yet  satisfied  for  percipient  con- 
sciousness." 

Well,  that  is  putting  the  very  point  in  another 
form.  It  is  because  life  is  more  than  a  mere  fact 
of  externality,  that  we  are  forced  by  the  action  of 
reflection  to  determine  it  as  having  a  future  beyond 
the  grave ;  and  yet  that  determination,  because  it 
takes  what  is  really  an  abstract  view,  is  inadequate, 
and  lands  us  in  contradictions  and  difficulties.  We 
have  got  to  work  ourselves  out  of  that  antinomy, 
and  we  can  only  do  this  by  finding  a  higher  con- 
ception which  gives  us  what  we  want  without  the 
contradiction  arising.  So  long  as  people  think  of 
life  at  its  highest  as  a  spectacle  in  time  and,  as  in 
this  aspect,  a  final  fact  of  reality,  so  long  will  they 
be  driven  to  long  for  its  continuance  beyond  the 
grave  in  just  that  form,  and  to  think  that  they  are 
shut  up  to  the  alternatives  of  its  either  ending 
here  or  continuing  beyond  the  grave.  They  take, 
do  these  people,  two  mutually  exclusive  views, 
and  alternate  necessarily  from  one  to  the  other. 
And  yet,  so  often  as  they  try  to  picture  this 
continuance,  just  so  often  will  they  be  driven 
to  fall  into  self-contradiction  and  inexplicable 
difficulties.  The  antinomy  is  a  real  one,  and  it 
must  be  solved  by  a  deeper  and  more  thinking 
consideration. 

We  have  already  in  the  course  of  these  lectures 
had  to  discuss  several  antinomies.  A  remarkable 


234  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  m. 

one  was  that  which  we  had  to  deal  with  in  the  case 
of  life  and  mechanism.  It  is  obvious  that  you 
cannot  give  an  adequate  account  of  life  in  terms  of 
mechanical  conceptions.  I  will  not  labour  that 
again,  because  I  have  dealt  fully  with  it  before ; 
but  out  of  the  tendency  to  express  everything  in 
mechanical  terms,  there  arose  a  theory  which  was 
called  Vitalism.  Vitalism  of  the  old  order  declared 
that  the  only  way  to  account  for  the  fact  of  organic 
life  was  to  suppose  that  there  was  some  kind  of 
vital  force,  different  from  ordinary  physical  forces, 
which  conserved  the  organism  and  gave  it  its  life. 
Well,  that  of  course  was  just  introducing  a  new 
mechanical  conception  to  redress  the  difficulties  of 
the  old  physical  conception,  and  Vitalism — the  old 
Vitalism — fell,  because  of  its  mechanical  view,  into 
just  as  great  contradictions  as  did  the  theory  which 
it  was  meant  to  improve. 

Now  the  ordinary  notion  of  a  continuance  of 
this  life  after  death  is  subject  to  just  as  great 
difficulties  as  was  the  old  Vitalism,  but  that  does 
not  drive  us  into  saying  that  the  soul  and  the  self  are 
to  be  conceived  as  something  which  comes  to  an 
end  with  the  grave,  any  more  than  it  would  be 
right  to  infer  from  the  failure  of  the  old  Vitalism 
that  the  mechanical  interpretation  of  life  was  the 
true  one.  The  truth  in  this  case  is  that  the 
difficulty  which  you  have  to  face  arises  from  the 
basis  upon  which  you  have  started,  and  it  was 
because  it  was  an  altogether  inadequate  concep- 
tion of  the  soul  to  take  it  as  a  mere  thing  in  time, 


AET  AND  DEATH  235 

that  you  were  driven  to  set  up  a  correction  of 
that  conception  by  supposing  a  continuance  in  time 
beyond  the  grave  as  the  only  way  of  getting  out  of 
the  dilemma  in  which  you  found  yourselves. 

In  other  branches  of  knowledge,  interpreted  in 
the  large  sense  in  which  I  have  used  the  word 
in  these  lectures,  the  problem  solves  itself  with- 
out difficulty.  In  Art,  for  example  in  the  pictures 
which  Art  gives  us  of  the  lives  of  great  men, 
we  are  not  troubled  with  the  notion  of  their 
deaths.  Not  only  do  we  see  in  them  minds  that 
have  risen  above  the  fear  of  death,  but  we  see  that 
in  their  deaths  the  completion  of  life  often  lies. 
In,  for  example,  the  death  of  Caesar,  or  of  Nelson, 
Art  can  draw  for  us  pictures  which  symbolise  what 
we  feel  to  be  the  highest  modes  of  completion  that 
we  could  have  desired  for  these  lives  as  it  interprets 
them  for  us.  We  would  not  have  them  end  other- 
wise— nay,  it  could  not  have  been  otherwise  without 
destruction  to  the  greatness  of  the  story.  "  Selig 
der  den  Er  im  Sieges  Glanze  findet"  is  an  expres- 
sion which  you  find  occurring  over  and  over  again 
in  different  forms  in  the  history  of  literature.  So 
it  is  in  yet  a  deeper  sense  with  the  life  of  Jesus. 
It  was  not  the  continuance  of  that  which  was,  in- 
definitely, it  was  its  culmination  in  a  scene  in 
which  past  and  present  and  future  were  gathered 
into  one  that  was  the  truth  of  that  life.  Not  in 
the  mere  temporal  succession  of  the  events  of  these 
great  lives,  but  in  action  in  which  duration  in  time 
became  of  merely  secondary  importance,  existed  for 


236  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  m. 

them  and  for  us  the  culminating  instant  which  be- 
came eternity. 

Well,  in  the  lives  of  such  men  we  find  the 
expressions  of  their  personalities,  of  their  self- 
consciousness,  in  forms  that  are  for  sense.  Art  has 
the  power  of  presenting  in  sensuous  form  what  is 
more  than  sensuous.  In  it  mind  finds  itself  again. 
The  world  that  appeared  for  them,  as  it  appears  in 
identical  forms  for  us  who  contemplate  their  careers, 
was  a  world  which  included,  in  what  was  necessary 
to  its  history,  their  own  deaths.  But,  together 
with  all  its  events,  its  beginning  and  its  end,  for 
them  as  for  us  that  world  arose  and  ended  within 
self-consciousness  and  was  in  that  self-conscious- 
ness transcended. 

Art  expresses  these  things  for  us  symbolically, 
and  when  it  tells  us  the  story  of  the  lives  of  great 
men  it  leaves  us  with  no  sense  of  difficulty  in  grasp- 
ing the  story.  For  Religion,  which  embodies  ana- 
logous truths  in  its  consciousness  of  free-will  acts 
of  self-surrender,  these  are  felt  to  be  the  truths  that 
are  absolute.  Faith,  the  sense  of  the  reality  of 
what  is  above  and  beyond  that  which  is  seen, 
makes  them  its  substance.  In  Religion  we  are 
conscious  of  difficulties  smoothed  away  for  us,  not 
by  scientifically  constructed  pictures,  but  by  the 
sense  we  have  of  truth  attained  in  self-surrender, 
in  the  adoption  of  purposes  which  are  greater  than 
our  own  finite  purposes  ;  and  in  the  consciousness  \ 
of  that  we  get  what  is  called  faith,  the  sense  of  the 
things  that  are  more  than  seen.  Problems  and 


THE  SYMBOLS  OF  RELIGION       237 

difficulties  disappear,  and  men  and  women  are  sus- 
tained by  a  sense  which  lifts  them  up.  That  sense 
accompanies  acts  of  will  and  arises  out  of  acts  of 
will.  But  Religion, — Religion  as  it  takes  form  in 
the  Church,  as  it  takes  form  in  the  intercourse  of 
the  human  beings  whom  it  binds  together, — Re- 
ligion is  assisted  by  the  pictorial  forms  into  which 
in  the  human  mind  it  naturally  passes.  These 
pictorial  forms  do  not  give  scientific  truth,  but  they 
are,  as  it  were,  the  symbols  in  which  religious  feel- 
ing expresses  itself.  We  have  the  sense  of  Absolute 
Existence,  of  God,  as  of  Someone  from  whom  we  are 
separated  and  whom  we  can  therefore  worship  as 
lower  beings  worship  the  highest;  but  we  also 
know  and  have  the  sense  of  our  union  with  that 
highest  form  of  mind  in  a  single  subject  of  know- 
ledge, the  knowledge  in  which  the  universe  is  sus- 
tained, and  it  is  that  relationship  which  enables  us 
at  once,  in  the  exercise  of  our  freedom  as  free  though 
finite  spirit,  to  be  apart  from  God  and  to  assume  to 
Him  the  attitude  of  those  who  may  pictorially  re- 
gard themselves  as  separated  from,  and  at  the  same 
time  as  returning  to  Him.  Of  these  things,  Religion, 
as  I  have  said,  can  give  no  scientific  pictures,  but  it 
can  give  us  an  assurance  arising  out  of  that  sense 
of  certainty  which  accompanies  the  act  of  the 
surrender  of  its  particular  existence  by  the  will. 
Metaphysics  has  for  its  business  to  put  those 
things  into  scientific  form,  and  it  does  so  in 
its  teaching  about  degrees  of  reality,  and  the 
eternity  of  self-consciousness  as  essentially  above 


238  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  m. 

time.  It  is  when  we  lapse  from  the  meta- 
physical standpoint,  and  try  to  express  what  is  as 
though  we  could  completely  describe  its  nature  in 
space  and  time  relations,  that  we  get  into  diffi- 
culties. Space  and  time  relations  are  necessary ; 
they  represent  reality  when  we  regard  things  under 
certain  conceptions  adopted  for  limited  purposes ; 
but  if  we  wish  to  get  at  the  truth  about  such  a 
matter  as  eternal  life,  we  have  to  resort  to  concep- 
tions of  a  higher  kind,  and  only  when  we  resort  to 
conceptions  of  a  higher  kind  are  we  delivered  from 
the  dilemma  that  this  life  either  ends  with  the 
grave  or  continues  beyond  the  grave.  The  grave 
and  this  temporal  present,  taken  as  events,  turn  out, 
from  a  higher  standpoint,  to  be  appearance  merely, 
and  not  to  be  representative  of  reality.  The 
antinomy  has  arisen  in  a  form  that  seems  at  first 
sight  insoluble  simply  because  of  the  limited  basis 
we  have  adopted,  and  what  we  have  to  do  is  by 
analysis  to  break  down  what  appears  as  hard-and- 
fast,  and  not  to  set  up  and  insist  upon  a  counter 
abstraction. 

Let  us  try  to  follow  this  out  in  a  concrete 
illustration.  A  child  dies.  Its  parents  are  over- 
whelmed with  grief.  As  time  goes  on,  their  grief 
remains.  The  touch  of  a  vanished  hand  is  missed, 
and  the  tender  grace  of  a  day  that  is  gone  never 
returns  to  them.  Now,  try  to  follow  what  it  is 
that  is  in  their  minds.  They  do  not  really  desire  a 
reunion  on  the  footing  that  they, — changed  it  may 
be,  by  the  lapse  of  twenty  years'  time,  changed  in 


RELATION  OF  SPIRIT  TO  SPIRIT    239 

circumstances,  in  character,  in  age, — should  meet 
again  the  child  stereotyped,  as  it  were,  at  the 
moment  of  death;  nor  do  they  desire  that  they 
should  meet  again  a  being  developed  in  another 
world  in  surroundings  far  away  from  all  the 
associations  of  this  one,  a  being  whom  they  would 
encounter  as  almost  a  stranger.  What  binds  them 
to  the  child  is  something  deeper.  It  is  a  relation, 
not  of  external  event  to  external  event,  but  of  spirit 
to  spirit.  The  physical  organism  of  the  child  was 
but  the  symbol  which  expressed  the  higher  mean- 
ing of  its  personality  to  them,  just  as  in  the 
patches  of  paint  upon  a  canvas,  which  at  one 
standpoint  are  mere  patches  of  paint,  we  are  able 
at  another  standpoint  to  discern  as  symbolised 
the  higher  meaning,  the  higher  expression.  The 
love  of  the  parents  for  the  child  is  not  a  relation  of 
physical  organism  to  physical  organism.  It  is,  as  I 
have  said,  a  relation  of  spirit  to  spirit,  and  it  is 
only  spiritually  that  it  can  be  interpreted.  The 
parents  do  not  desire  to  have  restored  in  another 
life,  unaltered  and  without  development,  the  being 
that  was  taken  from  them.  Apart  from  growth, 
apart  therefore  from  change,  without  a  course  of 
life  which  must  have  its  termination  just  as  it  had 
its  beginning,  temporal  existence  in  this  or  any 
other  world  which  resembled  it  would  be  intoler- 
able. It  is  only  in  a  deeper  and  more  adequate 
conception  that  we  can  find  that  relation  of  spirit 
to  spirit  which  is  really  desired  in  our  aspirations 
to  immortality. 


240  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  m. 

Now,  that  view  of  the  nature  of  the  individual 
is  not  a  view  which  has  been  confined  to  philosophy. 
There  are  two  little  companion  poems  of  Goethe, 
one  called  "Eins  and  Alles"  and  the  other 
"  Vermachtniss,"  in  which  this  thought  was  ex- 
pressed by  him  in  words  which  are  worth  while 
quoting  here : 

"Im  Grenzenlosen  sich  zu  finden, 
Wird  gern  der  einzelne  verschwinden, 

Da  lost  zich  aller  Ueberdruss  ; 
Statt  heissem  wimschen,  wildem  wollen, 
Statt  last  'gem  Fordern,  strengem  Sollen, 

Sich  aufzugeben  1st  Geniiss." 

"  In  what  is  infinite  to  find  himself  again 
Will  who  is  finite  gladly  pass  away  ; 
There  to  be  free  from  what  oppresses, 
There  free  from  burning  wishes,  wild  desire, 
There  free  from  grinding  pressure,  keen  ambition, 
In  self-surrender  blessedness  to  find." 

And  then,  again,  in  the  other  poem  we  have  the 
companion  verse : 

"  Kein  Wesen  kann  zu  nichts  zerfallen, 
Das  Ewige  regt  sich  fort  in  alien, 

Am  Sein  erhalte  dich  begliickt ! 
Das  Sein  ist  ewig ;  denn  Gesetze 
Bewahren  die  lebend  'gen  Schatze, 

Aus  welchen  sich  das  All  Geschmiickt." 

"  No  being  can  to  nothing  pass  away, 
In  everything  'tis  clear  the  eternal  moves. 
In  Being  steady,  then,  thyself  in  joy, 
Being  eternal  is,  for  laws  conserve 

The  living  Treasure 
From  out  of  which  stands  clothed  in  life  the  Whole." 

There  you  have  a  poetical  presentation  of  the 


THE  MEANING  OF  LOVE  241 

spiritual  aspect  of  the  individual,  an  aspect 
which  rises  beyond  the  mere  organism  and  the 
mere  notion  of  life  as  giving  its  significance  to 
individuality. 

Now  in  human  affection  it  is  clear  that  what 
is  loved  is  no  abstraction  fixed  by  the  understand- 
ing in  universals  that  are  unchanging.  It  is  the 
concrete  embodiment  of  the  spirit  which  though 
finite  is  free,  and  which  is  but  symbolised  in  the 
bodily  forms  in  which  it  expresses  itself,  and  in  the 
changes  in  which  the  working  out  of  its  own 
destiny  is  imaged.  The  love  of  the  parent,  of  the 
husband,  is  just  like  that  of  the  patriot,  of  the  artist, 
of  the  saint,  is  like  that  of  God  Himself.  It  is  a 
relation,  not  of  what  is  external  to  what  is  external, 
but  of  spirit  to  spirit.  "When,"  writes  Hegel,* 
"  we  say  God  is  love,  we  are  expressing  a  very  great 
and  true  thought ;  but  it  would  be  unreasonable 
merely  to  take  this  in  such  a  simple  way  as  a  simple 
characterisation  of  God,  without  analysing  the 
meaning  of  love.  For  love  implies  a  distinguishing 
between  two  ;  and  yet  these  two  are,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  not  distinguished  from  one  another.  Love, 
this  sense  of  being  outside  of  myself,  is  the  feeling 
and  consciousness  of  this  identity.  My  self-con- 
sciousness is  not  in  myself  but  in  Another;  but 
this  Other  in  whom  alone  I  find  satisfaction  and 
am  at  peace  with  myself,  and  I  exist  only  in  so  far 
as  I  am  at  peace  with  myself,  for  if  I  had  not  this 
inner  peace  I  would  be  the  contradiction  which 

*  Hegel,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Eng.  Tr.,  vol.  iii.  p.  10. 


242  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  „,. 

breaks  itself  up  into  parts — this  Other,  just  because 
it  is  outside  of  me,  has  its  consciousness  only  in 
me.  Thus  the  two  are  represented  simply  by  this 
consciousness  of  their  being  outside  themselves  and 
of  their  identity,  and  this  perception,  this  feeling, 
this  knowledge  of  the  unity,  is  love." 

Love,  in  other  words,  is  the  bond,  the  highest 
bond,  which  you  find  between  mind  and  mind.  In 
whatever  form  it  takes,  whether  it  originates  in 
some  natural  relation,  whether  it  originates  in  sense, 
whether  it  originates  in  the  relation  of  citizen  to  his 
country,  whether  it  originates  in  the  relation  of  man 
to  God,  the  highest  of  all  these  forms,  it  gets  its 
meaning  from  a  higher  and  deeper  conception  than 
anything  that  can  be  expressed  in  mere  external 
relations.  Love  is  the  highest  relation  of  spirit  to 
spirit.  With  that  conception  you  are  still  in  the 
sphere  of  the  one  and  the  many,  but  you  have  got 
to  the  highest  point,  the  point  at  which  in  the  rela- 
tion of  one  to  another  there  is  the  consciousness  of 
identity  in  the  deepest  sense. 

Now  if  that  be  so,  the  real  foundation  of  the 
love  of  the  parents  for  the  child  that  is  gone,  being 
a  relationship  of  spirit  to  spirit,  must  be  assigned 
to  an  aspect  of  existence  in  which  the  present  is 
something  more  than  a  mere  relationship  to  a  past 
and  to  a  future,  each  of  them  as  transitory  and 
unsatisfactory  as  itself,  and  in  which  the  real  nature 
of  spirit  may  be  sought  in  a  region  where  the 
mutual  exclusion  that  characterises  events  in 
time  does  not  obtain.  It  is  clear  that  at  one 


IDENTITY  LIN  DIFFERENCE         243 

extreme  we  can  describe  to  ourselves  in  abstract 
language,  in  abstract  conceptions,  a  self  within 
which  time  and  space  fall,  because  it  is  the  sub- 
ject for  which  all  knowledge  is.  And  if  reality 
have  degrees,  and  if  therefore  the  knowledge  in 
which  reality  consists  have  degrees,  then  it  becomes 
apparent  that  a  deeper  and  fuller  view  of  things 
than  the  view  which  fixes  life  as  an  event  midway 
between  a  past  and  a  future  is  the  view  which  would 
interpret  life  as  in  truth  transcending  the  succession 
of  these  three  different  moments  in  the  time  rela- 
tion. And  so  it  comes  that  it  is  not  on  our  own 
account,  nor  for  their  qualities,  but  because  in  their 
personalities  our  own  lives  really  centre,  that  we 
love  those  around  us.  It  is  in  form  the  conscious- 
ness of  identity  in  difference,  a  relation  which  tran- 
scends that  of  mere  externality,  and  belongs  to  a 
higher  degree  of  reality  and  to  a  different  stand- 
point. And  if  this  be  so,  we  seem  to  be  near  to 
the  key  to  our  problem.  It  is  no  longer  of  any  use 
to  put  the  dilemma  that  we  must  either  again  see 
or  not  again  see  those  from  whom  death  separates 
us.  The  antinomy  of  the  abstract  understanding 
raises  the  dilemma,  but  it  is  not  an  exhaustive 
dilemma.  It  is  not,  even  at  this  present  moment 
of  life  together,  a  question  of  mere  seeing.  If  death 
is  transcended,  if  it  ceases  to  be  more  than  appear- 
ance when  you  get  to  the  completed  comprehension 
of  the  conscious  self,  it  is  transcended  and  is  unreal 
in  the  love  which  is  the  manifestation  of  the  inmost 
nature  of  the  conscious  self,  that  inmost  nature 


244  FINITE  MIND  [LKT.  m. 

which  the  physical  organism,  in  its  nature  trans- 
itory, only  symbolises.  Neither  the  self  nor  that 
in  which  it  recognises  identity  with  itself  fall 
within  the  sphere  of  transitory  and  self-abolishing 
appearance.  If  one  goes,  the  other  goes.  If  one  is 
not  so  affected,  the  other  is  not  so  affected.  Could 
we  think  out  life,  or  even  a  particular  event  in  it, 
completely,  there  were  no  room  for  the  abstract 
antithesis  of  death.  We  are  more  than  mere  facts 
in  time,  and  time  cannot  bar  us  off  from  one  another 
if  we  are  all  of  us  more  than  mere  facts  in  time.  It 
is  not  by  setting  up  a  beyond,  but  by  breaking  down 
the  false  and  hard-and-fast  semblance  of  reality  in 
the  present,  that  we  solve  the  problem  that  con- 
fronts us.  Just  as  we  found  God,  not  in  some 
remote  region,  but  in  the  world  as  it  is  here  and 
now,  so  in  the  here  and  now,  in  this  present  more 
completely  comprehended,  and  more  completely 
brought  into  that  relation  to  mind  which  is  the 
key  to  all  reality,  do  we  find  the  true  immortality, 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  not  regarded  as  a  sub- 
stance, but  looked  at  as  subject  related,  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  identity  called  love,  to  subject  and  not 
to  substance. 

Doubtless  there  are  many  aspects  in  which 
death,  to  use  the  language  of  the  East,  is  the 
Separator  of  persons  and  the  Terminator  of  delights. 
These  aspects  are  aspects  which  confront  us  very 
closely  at  our  everyday  social  level.  When  we 
read  an  account  in  the  newspaper  of  a  railway 
accident,  these  are  the  aspects  which  are  engaging 


HIGHER  POINTS  OF  VIEW          245 

oui'  minds.  For  the  executor  and  the  undertaker, 
there  are  no  others  that  occupy  their  attention. 
But  these  are  not  really  the  aspects  which  occupy 
us  when  we  find  ourselves  longing  for  the  touch 
of  a  vanished  hand  and  the  sound  of  a  voice 
that  is  still.  It  is  the  relation  of  spirit  to  spirit 
which  then  engages  us.  If  we  will  but  look  at 
it  from  the  point  of  view  of  spirit,  if  we  will  but 
remember  where  the  pathway  towards  reality  leads 
us  to,  we  shall  find  that  the  dilemma  that  confronts 
us  in  our  everyday  conceptions  is  a  dilemma  which 
no  longer  presents  itself  as  exhaustive. 

In  life,  as  I  have  pointed  out  often,  there  are  in 
each  moment  implicit  diverse  standpoints  at  which 
reality  is  possessed  of  diverse  meanings  and  degrees. 
There  is  no  experience  but  implies  more  standpoints 
than  one ;  perhaps  every  experience  contains  an 
infinity  of  standpoints  and  conceptions.  And  it  is 
with  the  higher  standpoints  that  the  questions  of 
immortality  and  of  love  and  grief  are  truly  con- 
cerned, and  not  with  the  abstractions  which  are  the 
outcome  of  the  lower  standpoints.  It  is  the  Veil 
of  Maya  which  the  understanding  is  ever  weaving 
for  us  that  conceals  the  truth.  For  us,  whose 
picture  world  arises  under  the  finite  forms  of  our 
finite  knowledge,  a  direct  presentation  of  the  un- 
reality of  death  can  never  be  accomplished.  Yet 
as  symbols  of  more  than  they  can  express  for 
abstract  knowledge  such  pictures  are  of  use  to  us. 
The  dying  man  may  have  before  his  mind  the 
pictorial  spectacle  of  himself  as  passing  away  in  a 


246  FINITE  MIND  [L*CT.  m. 

world  which  he  and  others  image  as  continuing  after 
him.  It  does  not  disturb  him,  for  in  some  form  or 
another  he  has  a  deeper  sense.  He  may  be  filled  with 
a  simple  faith  that  assures  him  that  his  Redeemer 
liveth — or  a  faith  may  be  his  that  in  yet  a  different 
form  tells  him  that  it  is  within  his  own  self  that 
the  world  and  himself  as  in  it  are  passing,  and 
that  in  his  grasp  of  the  fact  he  is  above  it,  and 
is  at  one  with  the  eternal.  What  is  the  insight  that 
sustains  him  in  these  deep  waters  ?  Wherein  does 
he  comprehend  and  see  what  those  do  not  who  look 
at  him  and  mourn?  In  this,  perhaps.  For  him 
as  for  them  the  world  is  there,  with  its  present,  its 
past,  and  its  future.  The  present  is  determined 
only  through  the  future  and  the  past,  but  equally 
the  past  and  the  future  exist  only  as  distinctions 
made  within  the  present.  For  this  present  has  a 
supreme  reality  that  enables  it  to  be  grasped,  by 
the  mind  that  has  sufficient  insight,  as  that  which 
possesses,  beyond  the  appearance  with  which  it  is 
invested  by  the  finite  forms  of  reflection  necessi- 
tated by  the  ends  of  workaday  life,  a  higher  degree 
of  reality  that  belongs  to  the  Eternal.  At  this 
level  his  present  embraces  within  itself  no  less 
than  the  entire  universe,  and  the  separations 
that  other  purposes  have  hypostatised  into  what 
seems  final  and  unyielding  sink  into  mere  appear- 
ance. The  present  contains  within  itself,  for  him 
who  by  faith  or  by  knowledge  is  lifted  above  and 
away  from  purposes  which  pertain  but  to  the  pass- 
ing moment,  the  entirety  of  what  was,  is,  and  will 


FAITH  247 

be.  His  insight,  the  outcome  it  may  be  of  the 
faith  that  in  religion  comes  with  the  voluntary 
surrender  of  the  self  to  God,  or  the  outcome  of  a 
knowledge  that  may  be  rarer,  but  not  the  less 
brings  peace,  has  disclosed  to  him  supreme  reality. 
Dimly,  perhaps,  yet  certainly,  he  knows  that  he 
himself,  those  about  him,  the  world  which  one 
and  all  have  been  used  to  take  as  foreign  to 
themselves,  as  the  Other  that  confronts  them,  are 
included  and  exist  only  in  a  self-consciousness  that 
now  emerges  into  the  light  as  containing  within 
itself  every  event  that  exists  for  it,  even  the  spec- 
tacle of  the  passing  of  a  life  that,  not  the  less 
because  it  is  his  own,  in  one  aspect  belongs  to 
Nature.  He  sees  all  things  in  God,  and  this  is 
not  the  less  his  faith  because  he  may  not  know 
what  it  signifies  in  abstract  knowledge,  nor  be  able 
to  express  it.  Not  the  less  on  this  account  does 
the  true  reality  of  his  universe  sum  itself  up  in  a 
Now  that  comprehends  all  change  within  itself,  and 
is  so  beyond  the  reach  of  the  all-severing  wave  of 
time.  For  those  who  stand  by  his  bedside,  if  they 
have  not  the  insight  which  he  has,  and  their  very 
health  and  strength  immerse  them  in  interests 
which  make  this  hard  of  attainment,  he  is  but  part 
of  that  Nature  the  destiny  of  whose  creatures  it  is 
to  come  to  maturity  and  to  pass  away.  Not  for 
the  mere  Understanding  that  fixes  in  difference,  in 
obedience  to  finite  necessities,  but  only  for  the 
Reason  that  completely  comprehends,  can  the  full 
meaning  of  the  scene  be  made  manifest,  and 


248  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  m. 

appearance  give  place  to  reality.  By  Reason  the 
limits  of  the  finite  may  be  transcended  in  know- 
ledge, as  for  the  dying  saint  they  are  in  practice, 
and  men  may  be  certain  that,  could  they  compre- 
hend as  God  comprehends,  they  should  see  the 
Eternal  made  manifest  through  the  fleeting  shadows 
of  time.  For  there  is  but  one  Single  Subject  within 
which  all  knowledge  and  all  reality  fall.  With  and 
in  that  Single  Subject  philosophy  and  faith  alike 
assure  us  that  we  are  one.  And  so  when  his 
simple  creed,  pictorial  it  may  be,  but  symbolical  of 
the  deeper  meaning  of  reality,  bids  the  humblest 
soul  in  his  greatest  and  last  extremity  be  assured 
that  his  Redeemer  liveth,  it  may  be  that  there  has 
come  to  him  an  insight  in  form  only  different  from 
that  of  the  profoundest  thinker. 

Such  a  conclusion  is  not  the  mere  outcome  of 
mysticism.  It  is  the  outcome  of  the  reasoned 
system  which  Aristotle  founded  and  Hegel 
developed,  and  the  method  of  which  it  has  been 
my  endeavour  to  set  before  you  in  these  lectures 
as  the  only  one  that  can  cast  the  light  of  know- 
ledge on  the  nature  of  ultimate  reality. 

The  question  therefore  is  a  practical  one, 
whether  after  all  we  must  not  frankly  recognise 
that  these  aspirations,  the  "intimations  of  im- 
mortality," as  Wordsworth  has  called  them,  from 
which  we  cannot  escape,  are  in  truth  representa- 
tive of  degrees  of  knowledge  in  which  the  mind, 
though  still  at  the  standpoint  of  the  finite,  is 
raised  above  the  ordinary  dilemmas  of  everyday 


DEGREES  IN  KNOWLEDGE         249 

knowledge.  It  may  well  be  that  between  the 
extremes  of  mere  duration  on  the  one  hand  and 
being  above  time  on  the  other,  we  can  analyti- 
cally construct  the  conception  of  a  life  which 
understanding  cannot  present  as  existence  in  mere 
temporal  sequence,  but  which,  while  it  preserves  in 
love  the  differentia  of  otherness  and  individuality, 
is  yet  not  necessitated  to  present  itself  to  itself, 
even  in  immediacy,  as  a  passing  phenomenon.  It 
may  be  right  to  recognise  that  such  phases  of  con- 
sciousness belong  just  as  much  to  what  is  reality 
as  do  phases  in  other  kinds  of  knowledge.  In 
such  phases  I  can  conceive  that  consciousness  may 
be  still  finite,  and  yet  as  much  above  and  beyond 
my  consciousness  as  mine  is  beyond  that  of  my 
dog,  for  whom  the  appearance  of  this  world,  as  I 
pointed  out  to  you  in  the  lectures  of  last  year, 
must  be  very  different  from  what  it  is  for  me.  Just 
as  there  are  degrees  in  reality,  so  there  seem  to  be 
degrees  in  the  ends  and  standpoints  of  knowledge- 
degrees  above  those  of  our  ordinary  knowledge  and 
yet  short  of  the  knowledge  that  is  absolute.  At 
such  standpoints  the  categories  of  the  one  and 
the  many  may  still  apply,  and  separation  in  time 
and  space  yet  appear  unreal.  In  other  words,  it 
seems  as  though  it  were  conceivable  that  mind 
should  have,  even  in  finite  contemplation,  a  direct 
experience,  more  perfect  than  any  that  is  ours,  of  a 
relation  of  itself  to  the  world  in  which  the  passing 
of  that  world  would  not  seem  to  imply  the  passing 
of  the  mind  which  in  one  aspect  appears  in  it,  In 


250  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  „,. 

even  our  human  experience  it  is  plain  that  the 
mind  can  triumph  over  death ;  and  that  should 
not  surprise  us,  who  realise  that  in  social  relations 
which  are  characterised  by  finitude,  by  a  sense  of 
something  always  beyond,  even  when  the  moral 
law  is  being  obeyed,  we  are  ever  conscious  that 
we  are  more  than  physical  organisms,  more  than 
finite,  that  we  are  what  we  are  only  upon  a  basis 
that  is  absolute. 

I  will  sum  up  what  I  have  been  trying  to 
express  of  the  teaching  of  philosophy  about  the 
future  life.  That  life  is  represented  as  future  only 
on  the  footing  of  taking  the  present  as  having  no 
meaning  save  in  reference  to  what  is  beyond  in 
time — a  limit,  as  it  were,  not  more  on  the  side  of 
the  future  than  on  that  of  the  past.  But  the 
present,  so  taken,  is  no  adequate  picture  of  reality. 
Along  with  the  past  and  the  future  to  which  it 
refers  us  beyond  itself,  it  belongs  to  the  world  of 
appearance  only,  seems  as  it  does  only  in  virtue  of 
abstraction  by  the  understanding.  At  a  plane  of 
fuller  comprehension  that  present  turns  out  to  fall 
within  a  consciousness  of  self  which  is  eternal, 
because  only  within  it  can  time  and  the  other 
distinctions  which  mind  constructs  arise.  So  com- 
prehended the  now  is  an  eternal  now,  within  which 
past  and  future  arise  as  constructions  of  the  mind. 
It  is  only  on  the  basis  of  eternity  and  within  it,  that 
change  has  any  meaning.  Goethe's  maxim,  Gedenke 
zu  leben,  bids  us  think  of  life  as  greater  than  any- 
thing in  it.  Here  we  have  the  same  truth,  but  in 


THE  DIRECT  EXPERIENCE         251 

a  different  form.  Life  now  stands  for  us  as  intel- 
ligible only  when  contemplated  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  eternal.  Here  and  now  is  God, 
here  and  now  is  freedom,  here  and  now  is  immor- 
tality. It  is  the  old  difference  between  appearance 
and  reality,  between  the  world  as  it  seems  at 
different  planes  of  knowledge.  The  teaching  of 
philosophy  may  to  our  minds,  which  even  in 
the  best  thinking  are  dominated  by  the  finite 
ends  that  make  our  thinking  abstract,  and  ever 
leave  us  conscious  of  contrast  with  Another 
beyond,  appear  attenuated  and  shadowy.  Yet  none 
the  less  has  appearance  been  penetrated  and  over- 
come by  the  wonderful  might  of  thought  which 
can  rest  satisfied  only  in  the  ultimately  real.  Thus 
it  is  that  we  turn  quite  naturally  to  Art  and  to 
Religion  for  the  direct  sense  of  the  presence  of  what 
is  truly  closer  to  us  than  breathing  and  nearer  than 
hands  and  feet.  In  Art,  in  its  widest  and  highest 
significance,  and  most  of  all  in  Religion,  with  its 
deliverance  from  the  sense  of  unending  progress 
that  characterises  even  the  noblest  of  moral  lives, 
does  the  spirit  find  freedom.  The  theoretical  basis 
of  this  freedom  I  have  tried  to  set  before  you  in  this 
lecture,  and  I  should  like  to  quote  to  you  before  I 
sit  down,  the  analysis  given  by  Hegel  (who  as  usual 
deals  with  these  things  more  powerfully  than  other 
men),  of  the  peace  which  such  a  standpoint  as  that 
of  religion  can  give — a  peace  based  not  on  the 
mere  negation  of  the  will  to  live,  as  Schopenhauer 
conceived  it,  but  on  the  reality  which  is  attained  in 


252  FINITE  MIND  OCT.  ,„. 

the  acceptance  of  ends  which  are  God's  ends,  in 
the  place  of  ends  which  are  finite. 

"All  the  various  peoples,"  says  Hegel,*  "feel 
that  it  is  in  the  religious  consciousness  they  possess 
truth,  and  they  have  always  regarded  religion  as 
constituting  their  true  dignity  and  the  Sabbath  of 
their  life.  Whatever  awakens  in  us  doubt  and  fear, 
all  sorrow,  all  care,  all  the  limited  interests  of  finite 
life,  we  leave  behind  us  on  the  shores  of  time ;  and, 
as,  from  the  highest  peak  of  a  mountain,  far  away 
from  all  definite  view  of  what  is  earthly,  we  look 
down  calmly  upon  all  the  limitations  of  the 
landscape  and  of  the  world,  so,  with  the  spiritual 
eyes,  man,  lifted  out  of  the  hard  realities  of  this 
actual  world,  contemplates  it  as  something  having 
only  the  semblance  of  existence,  which,  seen  from 
this  pure  region  bathed  in  the  beams  of  the 
spiritual  sun,  merely  reflects  back  its  shades  of 
colour,  its  varied  tints  and  lights,  softened  away 
into  eternal  rest.  In  this  region  of  spirit  flow  the 
streams  of  forgetfulness  from  which  Psyche  drinks, 
and  in  which  she  drowns  all  sorrow,  while  the  dark 
things  of  this  life  are  softened  away  into  a  dream- 
like vision,  and  become  transfigured  until  they  are 
a  mere  framework  for  the  brightness  of  the  Eternal. 
This  image  of  the  Absolute  may  have  a  more  or  less 
present  vitality  and  certainty  for  the  religious  and 
devout  mind,  and  be  a  present  source  of  pleasure ; 
or  it  may  be  represented  as  something  longed  and 
hoped  for,  far  off,  and  in  the  future.  Still  it  always 

*  Hegel,  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Eng.  Tr.,  vol.  i.  p.  3. 


HARD-AND-FASTNESS  253 

remains  a  certainty,  and  its  rays  stream  as  some- 
thing divine  into  this  present  temporal  life,  giving 
the  consciousness  of  the  active  presence  of  truth, 
even  amidst  the  anxieties  which  torment  the  soul 
here  in  the  region  of  time.  Faith  recognises  it  as 
the  truth,  as  the  substance  of  actual  existing  things  ; 
and  what  thus  forms  the  essence  of  religious  con- 
templation is  the  vital  force  in  the  present  world, 
makes  itself  actively  felt  in  the  life  of  the  individual, 
and  governs  his  entire  conduct.  Such  is  the 
general  perception,  sensation,  consciousness,  or, 
however  we  may  designate  it,  of  religion." 

I  have  now  shown  you  that  it  is  only  for  mind 
as  finite  that  the  hard-and-fastness  of  nature  and 
its  forms  arise.  For  mind  at  a  higher  level  it  is 
put  past.  As  mind  we  exist,  in  the  deeper  mean- 
ing of  our  reality,  at  that  higher  level.  For  the 
plain  man  the  deliverance  from  the  fear  of  death, 
which  he  finds  directly  given  to  him  in  the 
emotions  which  Art  and  Religion  awaken,  is  a 
true  deliverance.  It  is  the  task  of  philosophy  to 
demonstrate  by  reasoning  the  foundation  of  this 
deliverance  in  the  nature  of  mind.  Herein  lie  the 
reconciliation  and  the  identity  of  knowledge  and 
faith,  and  the  substance  of  things  unseen. 


LECTURE  IV 

THIS  morning  I  approach  the  conclusion  of  these 
lectures.  You  will  have  observed  that  in  the 
twenty  discourses,  of  which  this  is  the  last,  I  have 
sought  to  draw  near  together  Philosophy  and  Art 
and  Religion.  The  reason  is  that  in  actual  life, 
life  as  it  is  for  us  whose  forms  of  knowledge  are 
characterised  by  finitude,  Art  and  Religion  are  the 
highest  forms  in  the  object  world  which,  from  our 
finite  standpoint,  we  presuppose  as  confronting  us 
within  and  without.  That  world  we  conceive,  in 
our  daily  ways  of  looking  at  things,  to  be  finally 
and  immediately  presented,  and  not  to  owe  its  con- 
struction to  reflective  mind.  This  conception  I 
have  shown  you  to  require  careful  consideration. 
It  has  within  it  no  permanence ;  it  is,  like  all  that 
depends  on  individual  presentation,  a  vanishing 
one.  It  is  in  the  conceptions  of  thought,  not-  j 
withstanding  that  for  us  they  will  always  be  , 
abstract,  that  permanence  is  after  all  to  be  sought. 
For  the  intellect  of  God  the  conceptions  of  philo- 
sophy can  be  no  abstractions  ;  for  us,  they  always 
will  be  such. 

The  work  of  philosophy  must  therefore  embrace 

254 


ART  AND  RELIGION  255 

the  critical  examination  of  the  symbols  of  Art  and 
of  Religion,  the  highest  forms  of  what  for  finite 
intelligence  is  concrete  and  directly  given,  with  a 
view  to  determining  what  in  them  is  representative 
of  ultimate  reality.  This  is  the  task  which  I  set 
myself  in  these  Gifford  Lectures.  You  will 
observe  that  I  have  guarded  myself.  I  have  been  • 
careful  to  point  out  that  the  images  of  the  artist 
and  of  the  saint  are  not  to  be  looked  upon  as  ; 
expressions  of  scientific  truth.  Nevertheless  they 
are  not  on  that  account  contradictory  of  scientific 
truth.  The  field  of  scientific  truth  has  turned  out 
to  be  a  limited  one.  Dilemmas  only  arise  when  Art 
and  Religion  assert  that  their  language  is  expressive 
of  truth  and  reality  as  they  appear  at  a  standpoint 
which  is  not  the  standpoint  of  Art  and  of  Religion. 
Of  the  standpoint  of  even  what  is  called  Naturalism 
I  am  the  last  to  wish  to  question  the  value  and 
importance.  It  is  as  a  man  of  the  world  that  I 
have  come  here  to  speak  to  you,  to  speak  with  a 
full  sense  of  the  value  of  concrete  things.  But 
because,  when  we  stand  still,  we  wish  to  feel  solid 
ground  under  our  feet,  it  does  not  follow  that 
we  should  despise  wings.  Art  and  Religion  fall 
into  trouble  when  they  speak  the  language  of 
Understanding,  but  what  they  teach  can  be  ex- 
pressed in  that  of  Reason.  Into  such  language  I 
have  tried  in  these  lectures  to  translate  their 
teaching.  We  have  found,  as  the  result  of  our 
journey  of  discovery,  that  the  pathway  to  reality 
leads  us  to  look  at  the  nature  of  what  is  ultimate 


256  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  iv. 

as  mind  completely  comprehending  itself,  and  that 
finite  mind  is  this  same  mind  in  imperfect  forms  of 
self-comprehension,  self-determinations  on  the  part 
of  the  Absolute  Mind  that  are  but  phases  of  the 
activity  in  which  it  creates  and  gathers  up  the  full 
riches  of  its  concrete  self-comprehension.  It  is  only 
relatively  to  an  insight  which  is  not  fully  attained 
in  finite  self-consciousness,  but  which  is  yet  pre- 
supposed as  its  foundation,  that  space  and  time  are 
abstract  and  insufficient  forms.  They  have  their 
meaning  as  distinctions  made  in  the  course  of  its 
self-realisation  by  the  consciousness  within  which 
all  reality  falls,  and  whose  vocation  it  is  at  once  to 
distinguish  in  comprehension  and  to  comprehend 
in  distinction.  It  is  to  the  doctrine  of  degrees  in 
reality  and  in  the  knowledge  in  which  the  nature 
of  reality  lies,  that  we  have  to  look  for  the  key  to 
the  way  out  of  the  perplexity. 

Yet  how  little  trouble  do  people  take  to  find 
this  key.  There  is  a  passage  in  Hegel,  the  last  of 
the  many  which  I  shall  have  quoted  to  you  in  the 
course  of  these  lectures,  to  which  I  should  like  to 
call  your  attention  at  this  point : — 

"  If  we  recollect,"  he  says  in  his  Philosophy  of 
Mind*  "how  intricate  is  the  knowledge  of  the 
divine  mind  for  those  who  are  not  content  with  the 
homely  pictures  of  faith  but  proceed  to  thought—- 
at first  only  rationalising  reflection,  but  afterwards, 
as  in  duty  bound,  to  speculative  comprehension,  it 
may  almost  create  surprise  that  so  many,  and 

*  Hegel,  Philosophy  of  Mind,  Eng.  Tr.,  p.  176. 


THE  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GOD         257 

especially  theologians  whose  vocation  it  is  to  deal 
with  these  ideas,  have  tried  to  get  off  their  task  by 
gladly  accepting  anything  offered  them  for  this 
behoof.  And  nothing  serves  better  to  shirk  it  than 
to  adopt  the  conclusion  that  man  knows  nothing  of 
God.  To  know  God  as  spirit — to  apprehend  this 
accurately  and  distinctly  in  thoughts — requires 
careful  and  thorough  speculation.  It  includes,  in 
its  forefront,  the  propositions  that  God  is  God  only 
in  so  far  as  He  knows  Himself ;  His  self-knowledge 
is,  further,  His  self-consciousness  in  man,  and  man's 
knowledge  of  God,  which  proceeds  to  man's  self- 
knowledge  in  God.  .  .  .  When  the  immediacy  and 
sensuousness  of  shape  and  knowledge  is  superseded, 
God  is,  in  point  of  content,  the  essential  and  actual 
spirit  of  nature  and  spirit,  while  in  point  of  form 
He  is,  first  of  all,  presented  to  consciousness  as  a 
mental  representation.  This  quasi-pictorial  repre- 
sentation gives  to  the  elements  of  His  content,  on 
the  one  hand,  a  separate  being,  making  them  pre- 
suppositions towards  each  other,  and  phenomena 
which  succeed  each  other;  their  relationship  it 
makes  a  series  of  events  according  to  finite  reflec- 
tive categories.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  such  a 
form  of  finite  representationalism  is  also  overcome 
and  superseded  in  the  faith  which  realises  one 
spirit,  and  in  the  devotion  of  worship." 

With  this  extract  I  pass  from  the  topic  of  the 
speculative  conception  of  God.  Before  I  sit  down, 
I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  about  a  subject  to  which 

I  have  made  but  little  allusion  in  the  course  of 

R 


258  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  iv. 

these  lectures — I  mean  that  of  which  we  hear  so 
much  to-day  under  various  appellations,  one  of 
which  is  Spiritualism.  It  would  be  the  sheerest 
bigotry  to  pass  by  or  ignore  the  work  of  the  distin- 
guished men  of  science  who  are  engaged  in  investi- 
gating its  phenomena.  Names  like  those  of 
Lodge,  Crookes,  Sidgwick,  Gurney,  Myers,  are 
names  that  must  appeal  to  us  all  by  the  weight 
of  their  authority.  And  yet  it  does  not  follow, 
because  we  listen  with  respect  to  what  these  men 
have  to  tell  us,  and  because  we  recognise  the 
remarkable  work  they  have  done  in  investigating 
and  sifting  certain  phenomena,  that  we  must  accept 
their  interpretation  of  their  facts.  For  that  inter- 
pretation appears  to  go  far  beyond  what  is  strictly 
science.  If  these  lectures  have  truth  in  them, 
mind  is  not  a  substance.  The  great  difference  is 
not  between  the  things  that  we  know,  but  between 
the  modes  in  which  we  know  them.  By  many 
adherents  of  spiritualism,  on  the  contrary,  it 
appears  to  be  assumed  that  our  experience  may 
be  interpreted  as  though  the  pathway  to  reality 
could  lead  to  a  region  where  minds  will  be  dis- 
covered to  be  substances  upon  which  other  sub- 
stances make  impressions.  Now  this  may  for 
some  purposes  be  a  useful  way  of  looking  at 
our  experience,  but,  as  I  showed  you  long  ago 
in  another  connection,  it  is  a  way  of  looking  at 
things  which  can  at  best  be  but  provisional.  Such 
a  mode  of  inquiry  as  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research  pursues  may  indeed  enlarge  the  narrow 


SPIRITUALISM  259 

limits  of  a  too  narrow  view  of  matter  and  of  energy. 
It  may  also — and  here  I  think  it  may  be  that  there 
is  very  great  value  in  the  investigations  of  those 
who  are  looking  into  the  phenomena  of  spiritualism 
—give  us  a  fuller  and  more  complete  conception  of 
the  physical  organism.  Such  work  as  has  been 
done  by  the  men  whom  I  have  alluded  to,  such 
work,  too,  as  that  which  was  done  in  their  book, 
The  Unseen  Universe,  by  Professor  Tait  and  Pro- 
fessor Balfour  Stewart — is  work  which  is  full  of 
interest,  in  so  far  as  it  tends  to  warn  us  that  we 
are  apt  to  come  to  the  investigations  of  physics  and 
physiology  with  presuppositions  which  are  too 
narrow  a  mode  of  approach  to  what  has  to  be  looked 
at.  It  may  be  that  the  teaching  of  spiritualism  will 
decisively  show  that  we  have  hitherto  excluded 
from  our  comprehension  a  large  field  of  pheno- 
mena of  nature  which  require  close  attention. 
But  no  such  investigation  can  be  any  guide  to  the 
character  of  the  ultimately  real,  as  metaphysics 
defines  it,  and  as  I  have  sought  to  show  you  that 
it  must  be  defined,  in  these  lectures.  Spiritualism 
and  all  cognate  methods  seem  to  tumble  into  the 
category  of  substance  in  just  the  same  fashion  as 
did  the  old  pre-Kantian  philosophy.  Their  stand- 
point seems  to  be  dogmatic  in  the  very  sense  in 
which  Kant  used  the  expression. 

Now  in  order  that  I  may  not  misrepresent  a 
way  of  looking  at  things  which  I  feel  I  may  have 
failed  fully  to  grasp,  I  wish  to  give  it  to  you  in 
the  words  of  one  who  is  recognised  as  having  been 


260  FINITE  MIND  [LKCT.  iv. 

among  its  most  distinguished  exponents.  There  is 
no  more  complete  or  thorough  work  in  this  field 
than  that  recorded  in  the  book  by  the  late  Mr 
Myers  which  bears  the  title,  Human  Person- 
ality and  its  Survival  of  Bodily  Death ;  and  I  will 
quote  to  you  from  the  First  Volume  his  summing 
up  of  the  standpoint  which  he  has  reached  as  the 
result  of  his  inquiry  : — 

"To  me  at  least,"  he  says,*'  " it  seems  that  no 
real  explanation  of  hypnotic  vitalisation  can,  in 
fact,  be  given  except  upon  the  general  theory  sup- 
ported in  this  work — the  theory  that  a  world  of 
spiritual  life  exists,  an  environment  profounder  than 
those  environments  of  matter  and  ether  which  in  a 
sense  we  know.  Let  us  look  at  this  hypothesis  a 
little  more  closely.  When  we  say  that  an  organism 
exists  in  a  certain  environment,  we  mean  that  its 
energy,  as  one  part  thereof,  forms  an  element  in  a 
certain  system  of  cosmic  forces,  which  represents 
some  special  modification  of  the  ultimate  energy. 
The  life  of  the  organism  consists  in  its  power  of 
interchanging  energy  with  its  environment, — of  ap- 
propriating by  its  own  action  some  fragment  of  that 
pre-existent  and  limitless  Power.  We  human 
beings  exist  in  the  first  place  in  a  world  of  matter, 
whence  we  draw  the  obvious  sustenance  of  our 
bodily  functions. 

"  We  exist  also  in  a  world  of  ether ; — that  is  to 
say,  we  are  constructed  to  respond  to  a  system  of 

*  F.    W.    H.   Myers'  Human    Personality   and  its  Survival  of 
Bodily  Death  (1903),  vol.  i.,  p.  215. 


ME  MYERS'  BOOK  261 

laws, — ultimately  continuous,  no  doubt,  with  the 
laws  of  matter,  but  affording  a  new,  a  generalised, 
a  profounder  conception  of  the  Cosmos.  So  widely 
different,  indeed,  is  this  new  aspect  of  things  from 
the  old,  that  it  is  common  to  speak  of  the  ether  as 
a  newly  known  environment.  On  this  environment 
our  organic  existence  depends  as  absolutely  as  on 
the  material  environment,  although  less  obviously. 
In  ways  which  we  cannot  fathom,  the  ether  is  at 
the  foundation  of  our  physical  being.  Perceiving 
heat,  light,  electricity,  we  do  but  recognise  in  certain 
conspicuous  ways — as  in  perceiving  the  'X  rays' 
we  recognise  in  a  way  less  conspicuous — the  per- 
vading influence  of  ethereal  vibrations  which  in 
range  and  variety  far  transcend  our  capacity  of 
response. 

"Within,  beyond,  the  world  of  ether, — as  a  still 
profounder,  still  more  generalised  aspect  of  the 
Cosmos, — must  lie,  as  I  believe,  the  world  of 
spiritual  life.  That  the  world  of  spiritual  life  does 
not  depend  on  the  existence  of  the  material  world, 
I  hold  as  now  proved  by  actual  evidence.  That  it 
is  in  some  way  continuous  with  the  world  of  ether, 
I  can  well  suppose.  But  for  our  minds  there  must 
needs  be  'a  critical  point'  in  any  such  imagined 
continuity  ;  so  that  the  world  where  life  and  thought 
are  carried  on  apart  from  matter,  must  certainly 
rank  again  as  a  new,  a  metethereal  environment.  In 
giving  it  this  name  I  expressly  imply  only  that  from 
our  human  point  of  view  it  lies  after  or  beyond  the 
ether,  as  metaphysic  lies  after  or  beyond  physics. 


262  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  w. 

I  only  say  that  what  does  not  originate  in  matter 
or  in  ether  originates  there  ;  but  I  well  believe  that 
beyond  the  ether  there  must  be  not  one  stage  only, 
but  countless  stages  in  the  infinity  of  things. 

" .  .  .  In  my  view,  then,  each  man  is  essentially 
a  spirit,  controlling  an  organism  which  is  itself  a 
complex  of  lower  and  smaller  lives.  The  spirit's 
control  is  not  uniform  throughout  the  organism, 
nor  in  all  phases  of  organic  life.  In  waking  life  it 
controls  mainly  the  centres  of  supraliminal  thought 
and  feeling,  exercising  little  control  over  deeper 
centres,  which  have  been  educated  into  a  routine 
sufficient  for  common  needs.  But  in  subliminal 
states — trance  and  the  like — the  supraliminal  pro- 
cesses are  inhibited,  and  the  lower  organic  centres 
are  retained  more  directly  under  the  spirit's  con- 
trol. As  you  get  into  the  profounder  part  of  man's 
being,  you  get  nearer  to  the  source  of  his  human 
vitality.  You  get  thus  into  a  region  of  essentially 
greater  responsiveness  to  spiritual  appeal  than  is 
offered  by  the  superficial  stratum  which  has  been 
shaped  and  hardened  by  external  needs  into  a  de- 
finite adaptation  to  the  earthly  environment.  Even 
thus  the  caterpillar's  outside  integument  is  fashioned 
stiffly  to  suit  larval  requirement,  while  deeper  in 
the  animal,  unseen  processes  of  rapid  change  are 
going  on,  in  obedience  to  an  impulse  not  derived 
from  larval  life." 

For  Mr  Myers,  then,  the  soul,  and  for  that 
matter  the  self,  would  appear  to  be  a  physical  and 
external  fact,  something  extended  in  space  and  de- 


ITS  DOGMATIC  PRESUPPOSITION    263 

veloping  in  time.  The  categories  of  mechanism 
are  the  categories  which  he  uses  as  adequately  de- 
scriptive of  its  existence.  After  all,  this  leads  us 
to  something  very  like  a  higher  form  of  materialism, 
because,  take  it  as  you  will  and  twist  it  as  you 
please,  whenever  you  attempt  to  describe  mental 
life  in  terms  of  the  categories  of  cause  and  of  effect 
and  of  substance,  to  materialism,  in  some  shape  or 
form,  you  come  back.  Such  a  standpoint  gives  the 
go-by  to  the  criticism  of  modern  philosophy.  I  do 
not  presume  to  examine  the  scientific  methods  of 
this  new  school,  or  to  ask  whether  their  standards 
of  testimony  are  wholly  complete  or  sufficient. 
Certainly  the  material  which  they  have  got  together 
is,  much  of  it,  very  striking ;  while  again,  there  is 
more  of  it  which,  according  to  the  criteria  of  the 
physicist,  or,  for  that  matter,  according  to  the 
standards  which  are  applied  in  courts  of  justice, 
would  require  a  great  deal  of  consideration  before 
we  could  accept  it.  Nevertheless  their  field  of  in- 
vestigation is  a  novel  one  and  their  task  a  very 
difficult  one,  and  far  be  it  from  any  of  us  to  be 
otherwise  than  grateful  for  investigations  to  which 
the  splendid  public  spirit  has  been  devoted  which 
is  shown  in  the  work  of  Mr  Myers  and  some  of 
those  who  have  collaborated  with  him.  Still,  I 
could  wish  that  the  adherents  of  this  school  had 
shown  more  consciousness  that  many  of  the  con- 
ceptions which  they  use  freely  had  been  subjected 
to  scrutiny  by  modern  philosophy,  and  shown  to 
be  very  full  of  what  is  misleading.  Even  to  go 


264  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  iv. 

no  further  than  the  philosophy  of  Kant,  no  one 
ought  to  undertake  an  investigation  into  the  field 
covered  by  Mr  Myers'  book  without  first  making 
himself  cognisant  of  the  criticism  to  which  Kant 
subjected  the  dogmatic  use  of  the  categories  which 
Mr  Myers  so  freely  employs.  In  the  difficult 
regions  where  such  inquiry  moves,  a  careful  criticism 
of  categories  is  absolutely  essential. 

But  one  does  not  need  to  go  to  metaphysics  to 
find  this  out.  The  acute  mind  of  the  Professor  of 
Psychology  in  this  University  of  St  Andrews, 
Professor  Stout,  has  been  directed  recently  to  an 
examination  of  a  phrase  which  Mr  Myers  and 
his  colleagues  have  employed,  the  "subliminal 
self."  Had  they  confined  themselves  to  using 
that  term  as  simply  a  convenient  one  for  embrac- 
ing certain  classes  of  mental  phenomena,  Pro- 
fessor Stout  would  have  offered  no  objection ; 
but  what  they  have  done  is  to  go  further,  and  to 
give  to  the  subliminal  self  an  existence  co-ordinate 
with  that  of  the  ordinary  self  of  consciousness,  and 
upon  this  point  Professor  Stout  parts  company  with 
them.  He  subjects  their  conception  to  a  close 
scrutiny,  and  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  ordinary 
psychological  method  has  at  all  events  the  capacity 
of  accounting  for  all  the  phenomena  with  which 
they  deal,  without  bringing  in  such  notions  as  that 
of  a  subliminal  self  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
phrase  is  used  by  the  adherents  of  the  school  of 
spiritualism. 

Now,   Professor    Stout    examines    the    whole 


ME  BRADLEY  ON  THE  SELF        265 

matter  in  a  critical  but  kindly  spirit.  A  more 
hostile  attack  is  made  by  Mr  F.  H.  Bradley,  in  his 
book,  Appearance  and  Reality,  and  while,  as  I  have 
already  told  you,  I  am  unable  to  go  the  whole 
length  of  Mr  Bradley's  scepticism  in  various 
matters  with  which  I  have  had  to  deal  in  the 
course  of  these  lectures,  Mr  Bradley's  scepticism 
is  so  thoroughly  reasoned,  and  consequently  so 
valuable,  that  no  one  can  deal  with  these  matters 
who  has  not  considered  its  foundation.  And  in  no 
region  is  this  more  apparent  than  in  his  investiga- 
tion of  the  phenomena  of  psychology.  Mr  Bradley 
is  not  only  a  great  metaphysician,  but  also  a  great 
psychologist,  and  among  other  things  he  subjects 
the  conception  of  the  self,  which  Mr  Myers  deals 
with  so  freely,  to  a  scrutiny  which  no  one  ought  to 
ignore  who  is  considering  these  matters.  In  his 
book,  Appearance  and  Reality,  he  deals  with  the 
conception  of  the  self,  especially  in  the  two  chapters 
on  the  "Meanings  of  Self,"  and  the  "Reality  of 
the  Self."  His  general  conclusion  is  the  necessary 
outcome  of  his  view  of  the  merely  relational  char- 
acter of  thought,  its  necessary  infection  with  the 
abstractions  and  isolations  of  the  understanding. 
For  reasons  already  given  I  cannot  wholly  accept 
his  view,  but  his  criticisms  are  none  the  less  valid 
against  all  psychological  attempts,  based  on  pre- 
sentational methods,  to  detect  the  self  as  anything 
approaching  to  a  physical  fact  or  substance.  For 
him  the  self,  as  ordinarily  spoken  of,  turns  out 
to  be  appearance  merely,  no  doubt  the  highest 


266  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  iv. 

form  of  experience  we  have,  but  for  all  that 
not  a  true  form.  It  certainly  cannot  be  described 
as  a  merely  discrete  or  discontinuous  succession 
of  isolated  experiences.  For  even  introspection 
carries  us  further  than  this,  and  shows  that  as 
long  as  there  remains  in  the  self,  sought  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  the  rest  of  the  universe,  a  certain 
basis  of  content  ideally  the  same,  so  long  may  the 
self  recall  anything  once  associated  with  that  basis. 
And  this  identity  of  content,  working  on  the 
principle  of  redintegration,  and  so  bringing  up  the 
past  as  the  history  of  one  self,  is  what  the  facts 
give  us.  It  shows,  says  Mr  Bradley,  that  self-same- 
ness exists  as  an  apparent  fact,  and  that  hence  some- 
how an  identical  self  exists ;  but  how,  according  to 
him,  we  cannot  tell.  We  cannot,  he  thinks,  define 
what  we  mean  by  personal  identity.  Psychology 
shows  us  the  importance  of  memory  in  the  practical 
view  of  everyday  life ;  but  it  shows  us  this  besides, 
that  a  self  is  not  thought  to  be  the  same,  merely 
because  of  apparent  continuity  of  memory,  but  only 
so  when  that  memory  is  regarded  as  not  being 
deceptive.  Memory,  he  points  out,  depends  upon 
reproduction  from  a  basis  that  is  present,  a  basis 
that  may  be  said  to  consist  in  self-feeling.  Hence, 
so  far  as  this  basis  remains  the  same  through  life, 
we  may  recall  anything  once  associated  with  it. 
As  this  basis  changes,  so  does  its  connection  with 
past  events  appear  different.  The  basis  may  even 
be  so  altered  that  the  very  condition  required  for 
reproduction  of  our  past  life  is  gone,  and  if  the 


MR  BEADLEY  ON  THE  SELF        267 

basis  alters  back  and  forwards,  our  past  life  may 
appear  to  us  so  differently  that  we  seem  to  be 
different  selves  alternately,  selves  which  have 
never  really  existed  in  the  past,  such  as  the 
selves  conceived  under  the  influence  of  hypnotic 
suggestion. 

Observe  how  this  psychologist  shows  that  it  is 
not  only  altogether  unnecessary,  but  that  it  is  a 
misconception,  to  resort  to  the  notion  of  an  out- 
side self,  a  different  thing,  taking  possession,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  physical  organism  of  the  hypno- 
tised subject  and  directing  it.  What  he  points  out 
is  that  the  identity  on  which  we  rest  our  view  of 
our  continuity  rests  upon  the  basis  of  memory,  and 
if  this  basis  be  shifted — whether  by  suggestion,  or 
by  illness,  or  by  whatever  other  means — the  result 
is  that  we  may  enter  upon  a  totally  different  view 
of  our  past  and  therefore  of  our  present,  and  that 
we  may  appear  to  ourselves  to  be  even  different 
personalities.  Thus,  he  concludes,  mere  memory 
is  not  the  basis  of  a  true  personal  identity.  Some 
sort  of  continuity  of  existence  is  required,  but  what 
sort  we  cannot  say.  And  in  a  remarkable  illustra- 
tion he  observes  :  "  He  who  is  risen  from  the  dead 
may  really  be  the  same,  though  we  can  say  nothing 
intelligible  of  his  ambiguous  eclipse  or  his  phase  of 
half  existence.  But  a  man  wholly  like  the  first, 
but  created  fresh  after  the  same  lapse  of  time,  we 
might  feel  was  too  much  to  be  one,  if  not  quite 
enough  to  make  two."  * 

*  F.  H.  Bradley,  Appearance  and  Reality,  2nd  ed.,  p.  85. 


268  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  w. 

That  is  a  kind  of  criticism  which  you  really 
cannot  ignore  in  the  investigation  of  these  pheno- 
mena ;  and  until  modern  spiritualists  equip  them- 
selves better  with  a  knowledge  of  what  has  been 
done  in  the  sphere  of  psychology,  they  cannot 
expect  their  investigations  to  receive  the  attention 
and  the  consideration  which  they  would  otherwise 
receive. 

I  agree  with  the  attitude  of  Professor  Stout  in 
his  recent  article  on  Mr  Myers'  book  in  the  Hibbert 
Journal*  in  which  he  says  that  we  have  to  listen 
attentively  and  gratefully  to  what  is  told  us  by  the 
distinguished  men  who  are  inquiring  into  the 
phenomena  of  telepathy  and  hypnotism  and  the 
so-called  subliminal  self.  They  may  be  able  to 
establish  facts  which  will  require  the  closest  in- 
vestigation, and  their  investigation  may  lead  to  an 
enlargement  of  the  field  of  observation  greater  even 
than  that  which  the  progress  of  modern  chemistry 
is  rapidly  effecting.  But  on  the  problem  of  the 
nature  of  ultimate  reality,  or  on  the  problems  of 
free-will  and  immortality,  and  of  the  relation  of  the 
divine  mind  to  the  human,  it  does  not  appear  to 
me  that  their  methods  are  capable  of  throwing 
light.  If  they  succeed  in  showing,  as  it  is  at  least 
possible  that  they  may  do,  that  our  conception  of 
the  physical  organism  has  been  too  narrow,  this 
may  have  important  consequences  for  physics  and 
biology,  and  even  for  anthropology.  But  its  interests 
can  hardly  extend  beyond  the  region  of  these 

*  Professor  Stout,  Hibbert  Journal  for  October  1903. 


END  OF  THE  PATHWAY  269 

sciences  into  these  other  regions  where  the  cate- 
gories of  externality  are  not  applicable. 

I  pass  therefore  by  the  gate  where  they  stand 
and  beckon  us  to  follow  them  down  a  different 
path  from  that  which  we  have  been  treading  in  the 
course  of  these  lectures.  Their  road  leads  to  no 
region  in  which  we  could  have  found  light  on  the 
deeper  problem  with  which  we  are  concerned. 
Accordingly  I  now  bring  you  to  what,  so  far  as 
these  lectures  are  concerned,  is  the  close  of  our 
journey.  From  the  place  where  we  have  come  to 
stand  we  see  lying  beyond  us  new  regions,  the 
gate  to  which  is  now  open  to  us.  We  have  • 
learned  that  not  then  and  there  in  some  other  and 
different  world,  but  here  and  now  in  just  this  one 
truly  interpreted,  is  to  be  sought  Keality.  Such 
knowledge  is  but  abstract.  Not  to  philosophy 
alone  can  we  look  for  deliverance.  Philosophy,  \ 
more  than  any  other  kind  of  science,  more  than 
even  the  science  of  the  mathematician,  enables  us  to 
survey  the  world  from  above  the  level  of  our  finite- 
ness.  But  it  is  not  the  abstractions  of  the  scientist, 
nor  even  the  system  of  universals  in  which  philo- 
sophy herself  moves,  that  can  set  for  us  the  concrete 
riches  that  we  find  without  as  within  ourselves. 
The  poets  and  the  artists,  the  men  of  goodliness 
and  the  men  of  godliness,  they,  too,  have  learned 
to  see  existence  sub  specie  ceternitatis,  and  they,  too, 
must  be  our  teachers  if  the  spirit  is  fully  to  com- 
prehend itself.  The  metaphors  which  they  use 
may  be  inadequate,  but  their  speech  is  to  the  heart, 


270  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  iv. 

and  from  the  heart  the  head  can  never  wholly  be 
separated.  They  touch  our  emotions,  and  make,  as 
no  mere  reasoning  can, 

"  Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the  being 
Of  the  eternal  silence  ;  truths  that  wake 
To  perish  never." 

But  still  in  the  end  it  is  to  the  history  of  philo- 
sophy that  we  must  turn,  if  we  would  gain  an  abiding 
insight  into  the  nature  of  Reality.  To  Reason  the 
problem  is  due,  and  Reason  alone,  as  I  told  you  at 
the  very  beginning  of  these  Gifford  Lectures,  can 
heal  the  wounds  which  Reason  has  made.  Mind 
there  may  be,  at  a  higher  level  than  ours,  and  yet 
finite,  that  can  find  itself  in  the  world  as  it  seems, 
with  less  labour  and  more  immediate  certainty 
than  can  mind  as  it  is  in  us  men  and  women. 
Only  by  difficult  analysis  can  the  spirit  penetrate 
beneath  the  hard  crust  of  appearance  and  there 
discover  itself  as  the  reality  that  is  final.  Yet,  in 
the  struggle  to  raise  ourselves  to  the  level  of  specu- 
lative thinking,  we  have  this  comfort,  nothing  once 
gained  can  ever  be  wholly  lost.  Insight  into  its 
own  nature  by  the  mind  that  is  conscious  of  its 
own  potential  greatness,  brings  with  it  deliverance, 
and  freedom  of  the  spirit.  Man  learns  the  lesson 
that  the  true  home  of  his  soul  is  eternity.  "  In  the 
notion  once  is  always." 

"  All  that  is,  at  all, 

Lasts  ever,  past  recall ; 
Earth  changes,  but  thy  soul  and  God  stand  sure, 

What  entered  unto  thee, 

That  was,  is,  and  shall  be ; 
Time's  wheel  runs  back  or  stops ;  Potter  and  Clay  endure." 


CONCLUSION  271 

I  have  now  completed  my  task,  how  imperfectly 
I  well  know.  Under  the  sun  there  is  nothing  new. 
The  real  searcher  after  truth  seeks  not  to  unearth 
some  isolated  particle,  nor  is  he  eager  for  the  joy  of 
labelling  it,  when  found,  with  the  name  of  his  own 
small  personality.  He  seeks  rather  to  make  his 
own  what  the  great  minds  have  brought  to  light 
of  the  true  nature  of  Reality  in  Art,  in  Religion,  in 
Philosophy.  For  to  comprehend  is  to  pass  beyond. 
He  tries  to  add  to  the  common  stock  what  he  has 
got,  even  if  it  seems  to  him  but  a  fragment  broken 
from  the  infinity  of  God's  Truth.  At  least,  he  can 
fulfil  that  most  sacred  of  all  duties,  to  strive  to  be 
helpful. 

Yet  in  the  end  each  must  do  the  work  for  him- 
self and  in  his  own  fashion.  Only  in  solitude  can 
the  hardest  part  of  the  pathway  to  reality  be 
trodden : — 

"  Space  is  but  narrow — east  and  west — 
There  is  not  room  for  two  abreast." 

No  one  of  us  is  like  any  other,  either  in  his  needs 
or  in  the  mode  in  which  these  needs  must  be 
satisfied.  Every  man  bears  the  impress  of  his 
finitude,  with  its  infinite  variety  of  form.  Hardly 
less  is  that  impress  borne  by  even  the  greatest  and 
highest  expression  in  which  the  truth  is  told  to  us. 
Yet  if  that  truth  be  hard  to  reach — nay,  even  if  the 
most  genuinely  strenuous  effort  to  reach  it  must 
ever  remain  incomplete,  and  the  work  have  to  be 
done  over  again  by  each  one  for  himself,  we  have 
no  justification  for  despair,  or  for  sitting  in  idleness 


272  FINITE  MIND  [LECT.  iv. 

with  folded  hands.  For  in  the  search  for  truth,  as 
in  all  the  other  phases  of  our  activity,  we  only  gain 
and  keep  our  life  and  freedom  by  daily  conquering 
them  anew. 

There  is  a  passage  in  Spinoza,  with  which  I  will 
conclude  these  lectures.  He  ends  the  final  Book 
of  his  Ethics  with  these  words  :— 

"  I  have  finished  everything  I  wished  to  explain 
concerning  the  power  of  the  mind  over  the  affects, 
and  concerning  its  liberty.  From  what  has  been 
said,  we  see  what  is  the  strength  of  the  wise  man, 
and  how  much  he  surpasses  the  ignorant  who  is 
driven  forward  by  lust  alone.  For  the  ignorant 
man  is  not  only  agitated  by  external  causes  in  many 
ways,  and  never  enjoys  true  peace  of  soul,  but  lives, 
also  ignorant  as  it  were,  both  of  God  and  of  things, 
and  as  soon  as  he  ceases  to  suffer  ceases  also  to  be. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  wise  man,  in  so  far  as  he  is 
considered  as  such,  is  scarcely  ever  moved  in  his 
mind,  but  being  conscious,  by  a  certain  external 
necessity,  of  himself,  of  God,  and  of  things,  never 
ceases  to  be,  and  always  enjoys  true  peace  of  soul. 
If  the  way  which,  as  I  have  shown,  leads  hither,  be 
very  difficult,  it  can  nevertheless  be  found.  It  must 
indeed  be  difficult,  since  it  is  so  seldom  discovered ; 
for  if  salvation  lay  ready  to  hand,  and  could  be  dis- 
covered without  great  labour,  how  could  it  be 
possible  that  it  should  be  neglected  almost  by  every- 
body !  Sed  omnia  prceclara  tarn  difficilia  quam 
rara  sunt ;  but  all  noble  things  are  as  difficult  as 
they  are  rare." 


INDEX 


Appearance   and  Reality,  Mr  Brad- 

ley's,  267. 
Apprehension  and  Comprehension, 

62,  63,  88. 
Aristotle,   4,    7,  47,  121,  146,  153, 

156. 
Art,  32,  35,  147,  192,  193,  199,  201, 

203,  207,  235,  251.  255. 
Athanasian  Creed,  166,  167. 
Athanasius,  165. 
Atonement,  the,  128,  169. 

BACON,  219. 

Beauty,  25,  176,  177. 

Beethoven,  181. 

Being  and  Not-being,  57,  61. 

Berkeley,  4,  40,  86,  143. 

Body,  the,  52,  54,  55,  144,  217. 

Boland,  145. 

Bonitz,  121. 

Bosanquet,  57,  75,  138,  141. 

Bradley,  Professor  A.  C.,  187,  188. 

Bradley,  F.  H.,  xiii.,  72,  74,  79,  80, 

265. 

Browning,  104,  192,  209. 
Burnet,  Professor,  121. 
Byron,  191. 

CAIRO,     Professor     Edward,     The 

Evolution  of  Religion,  223. 
Carlyle,  45,  49,  139,  199. 
Category,  6. 
Cause  and  Effect,  66. 
27i 


Childhood,  55,  56,  136. 

Christianity,  16. 

Commentary  on  the  Book  of  Daniel, 

Luther's,  127. 
Comprehension,  62,  89. 
Conduct,  33. 
Conversations  of  Goethe,  Eckermaun's, 

188,  189.  190. 
Cousin,  19. 
Critique  of  Judgment,  Kant's,  195, 

198. 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  Kant's,  1 94, 

195. 

DEATH.  20  •,  213,  219,  245. 
Dedekind,  77. 
Dialectic,  21,  67. 
Dogmatik,  Strausa's,  59. 
Donaldson,  Principal,  121,  164. 
Dutch  landscape,  184. 

ECKERMANN,  188. 

Encyclopaedic,  Hegel's,  18. 
Ends,  4,  5,  24. 
Erdmann,  15,  57,  145. 
Eternal  Lite,  225,  227. 
Ethics,  Spinoza's,  M5. 
Evil,  origin  of,  129. 
Evolution,  110. 
Experience,  4. 

FAITH,  33,  169. 
Fall,  the,  128. 


274 


INDEX 


Faust,  Goethe's,  46,  84, 123. 

Feeling,  48. 

Fichte,  19. 

Finitude,  69,  97,  108,  116,  117,  118, 

171. 
Fitzgerald,    Omar    Khayyam,    208, 

209. 

GEOMETRY,  9. 

Gifford,  Lord,  3. 

Gladstone,  123. 

God,  8,  13,  26,  36,  58,  81,  98,  115, 
120,  155,  157,  170,  237  ;  defini- 
tion of  His  nature,  117  ;  as  mind, 
13,  81  ;  His  relation  to  man,  130, 
237  ;  His  relation  to  nature  and 
evil,  132,  133  ;  His  relation  to 
reality,  3. 

Goethe,  xv.,  8,  50,  84,  123,  125,  126, 
127,  188,  197,  217. 

Goethe's  Faust,  46,  84 ;  Goethe's 
Oott  und  Welt,  123, 124  ;  Goethe's 
Eins  und  Alles,  50,  240  ;  Goethe's 
Vermachtniss,  240. 

Green,  T.  H.,  xiv. 

Gurney,  Edmund,  258. 

HARNACK,  History  of  Dogma,  166. 
Hegel,  xiii.,  7,  12,  17,  25,  48,  56,  57, 

59,  61,  69,  73,  83,  88,  99, 101, 112, 

133,  149,  163,  167,  169,  178,  196, 

198,  251.  252,  256. 
Heraclitus,  24,  112. 
History,  120. 

Holy  Ghost,  sin  against  the,  129. 
Human  Personality  and  its  Survival 

of  Bodily  Death,  260. 
Hume,  40,  73. 

Intimations  of  Immortality,  Words- 
worth's, 37. 

JOHN,  Gospel  of,  161,  164, 
Jowett,  83. 
Judgment,  23. 
Justin  Martyr,  165, 


KANT,  4,  65,  71,  194 ;  his  Critique 
of  Judgment,  195  ;  his  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason,  194,  195. 

Knowledge,  22,  42. 

LAWS  OP  NATURE,  34. 

Leib  und  Seele,  Erdmann's,  57,  145. 

Lessing,  190. 

Locke,  101. 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  258. 

Logic,  153. 

Logos,  161,  162,  164. 

Long,  The  School  of  the  Woods,  215, 

216. 
Luther,  126,  127. 

MANHOOD,  56. 

Materialism,  39. 

Maya,  the  Veil  of,  245. 

Metaphors,  5,  17. 

Mill,  4,  143. 

Mind,  13,  14,  38,  39,  44,  48,  49,  52, 

70,  81,  87,  135,  156,  159. 
Montaigne,  63. 
Morality,  32,  35. 
Miinsterberg,  48,  131,  153. 
Music,  64,  180,  181. 
Myers,  F.  H.,  258,  260. 

NATURE,  69,  91,  92,  93,  94,  132. 
Natur-Philos'yphie,  Hegel's,  57,  112. 
Neoplatonism,  160,  164,  165. 
Newman,      Cardinal,     hia     "Lead 
Kindly  Light,"  186. 

OLD  AGE,  57. 

PARODY,  185,  186. 

Personality,  81. 

Philo,  160". 

Philosophy,  32. 

Philosophical    Theory  of   the   State, 

Bosanquet's,  141. 
Philosophy  of  Fine  Art,  Hegel's,  149, 

152,  178,  179,  198. 
Philosophy  of  Mind,  Hegel's,  67,  256, 


INDEX 


275 


Philosophy  of  Religion,  Hegel's,  133,      Sophist,  Jowett's  Introduction  to  the, 


135,  169,  252. 


83. 


Plato,    4;   his   Republic,     19;     his      Soul,  52,  53,  54,  55,  217. 


Parmenides,  67. 
Plotinus,  160. 
Poetry,  183,  185,  187. 


Space,  46,  64, 65. 
Spencer,  Herbert,  143. 
Spinoza,  95,  204,  272. 


Poetry  for  Poetry's  Sake,  A.  C.  Brad-      Spiritualism,  258,  259. 


Stael,  Madame  de,  19. 
Stout,  Professor,  264. 
Strauss,  59. 


ley's,  188. 

Presentationism,  10,  48,  131. 
Principles  of  Psychology,  James',  43. 
Proofs  of  the  Existence  of  God,  Hegel's,      Substance,  60. 

167,  169. 
Psychology,  10. 
Psychology  of  the  Moral  Self,  Bosan- 

quet's,  57. 


TAIT,    Professor,    Unseen    Universe, 

259. 

Tennyson,  155. 
Thing,  5,  7,  11,  39. 
Thought,  33,  48,  62,  69,   87;    its 
relation  to  Beauty,  25  ;  its  relation 
to  Things,  7. 
Time,  41,  43,  44,  46,  64,  65,  80,  111, 

112. 
Trinity,  Doctrine  of  the,  160,  163, 

167. 
Sartor  Resartus,  Carlyle's,  45,  139,      Turner,  35,  178. 

199. 

Schiller,  124,  197.  VITALISM,  234. 

Schopenhauer,  75.  Von  Baer,  43. 

Schwegler,  121. 
Self,  52,  69,  75,  81,  131,  132,  265,      WARD,  Professor,  137. 


REALITY,  10,  23,  39,  71. 

Kelativity,  5,  42,  43. 

Religion,  32,  36,  130,  202,  203,  207, 

237. 

Ring  and  the  Book,  Browning's,  192. 
Royce,  58,  75,  79,  80. 


267. 
Self- comprehension,  47, 174. 


Was  sind  und  was  sollen  die  Zahlen, 
Dedekind's,  77. 


Self-consciousness,    10,    11,   53,  87,      Wordsworth,  50, 104, 248  ;"  Intima- 


106. 


tions  of  Immortality,"  37,  248. 


Series,  76,  77,  78,  79,  88,  113,  157  ;      World,  4. 


self- representative,  78,  80,  113. 
Shakespeare,  206. 
Svmultaneum,  idea  of  a,  115. 
Socrates,  19. 
Solipsism,  60. 


World  and  Individual,  Royce's,  78. 
World  as  Will  and  Idea,  Schopen- 
hauer's, 180. 

YOUTH,  56. 


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